M - HEALTH and E – HEALTH

IN VIRTUAL PATIENT MONITORING

Definition

The fast development of informations and communications technology has encouraging

innovation and changes that involves experiments in various fields, including the health sector

which implements the use of computers in its activities or commonly known as E-Health and M-

Health.

In the past few years, disease prevention and treatment have been greatly enhanced through the

use of E-Health and M-Health tools. Although the two are different in both practical application

and theory, they have a similar objective: to improve the quality, accessibility, cost, and

efficiency of healthcare.

E-Health or Electronic Health is the use of informations and communications technology that

includes electronics, telecommunications, computers and informatics to process various types of

medical information, in order to carry out clinical services (diagnosis or therapy), administrations

and educations. In E-health, distance is not a problem anymore because all activities are carried

out via data connections and in real time.

M-Health — can also be an important part of virtual healthcare. These apps are usually on

devices like tablets and smartphones. They’re more for patient education than for treatment and

diagnosis. The M-Health application is to simplify and assist patients and health workers to carry

out post-diagnosis care of a patient for a disease, and this conveniences is in the form of
efficiency in terms of time and cost. These systems create the infrastructure to provide health

records, patient files, lab results, and general administration needs online.

Example of M-Health

Fitbit is a great example of what defines an M-Health device. It is a wearable technology known

as a “fitness tracker” that gives users a way to monitor their activity levels on a day-to-day basis.

Fitbits are worn on the wrist and look like modern watches, but they can track heart rate, number

of steps taken per day, and sleep data including how many hours a user has slept and been awake

in a given night. The user can also input additional information into the app, including their

water and food intake.

One of the key benefits of Fitbits is that they are mobile and accessible anywhere. They are

small, compact, and serve various useful functions that can aid in the overall health of their

wearer. The user can explore their health data at any time, either from the M-Health device

interface itself or from the mobile app.

Fitbit provides a very personal experience that gets people excited about recording and tracking

their health data, which can have numerous positive effects on the user’s health and health

awareness.

Chronic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, can be managed with the support of mobile

applications or better known as “mobile apps” which can be downloaded on smartphones.

Applications on smartphones can also help diabetes mellitus patients to control their fitness and

health.
The use of mobile application devices to improve health, health services or health-related

research has been known as M-Health. Many smartphones and tablets applications are available

to manage diabetes mellitus. The most common features are the calculation of insulin doses and

medication reminders, then to view data (glucose test results), communication, recording food

intake and monitoring body weight.

Examples of Application of E-Health in the World of Health.

It is a computerized drug prescription writing system, also known as E-Prescription, where in

this system doctors can write and send prescriptions to the pharmacy using electronic media

instead of handwriting and the use of paper media.

This system is designed to avoid adverse drug reactions that are usually caused by the wrong use

of drugs during the handling of health personnel, which in fact can be prevented if they are

executed more carefully.

Myhealthrecord.com is a web-based E-Health application that allows users to manage virtually

every aspect of their care and health. Through the website, they can monitor current and previous

medications, book appointments, change physicians, view records such as immunizations and lab

results, and send both documents and messages to health care professionals.

A few of the benefits of the site – and what has come to be a signature aspect of the eHealth

definition – is that it is secure, convenient, and can be accessed from any desktop or laptop

computer. Users have their own accounts with secure usernames and passwords. While the site

can be accessed on a mobile device, its interface is designed more for the desktop experience.
Simple E-Health System Diagram

In simple terms, the E-Health system consists of numbers of "Medical Stations" which are

connected to each other in a network (Network). A medical station itself can consist of :

1. A computer with software on it

2. A patient interface device

3. A number of biomedical instruments (depending on needs)

4. A user interface device (along with the input output device used)

5. Available telecommunication networks and equipment.

Basically, every medical station can connect with other medical stations on:

1. Real-time (synchronously), for example: during a teleconsultations between a general

practitioner and a specialist regarding an emergency case of a patient.

2. Store and forward, sending an information and reading it at different time, for example in

a short presentation of how many patients in a health center for a month along with

important information in brief.

Benefits and Problems of Using E-Health Systems.

This E-Health system is very beneficial for the health and medicine field today, because to keep

up with the high activity and delivery of detailed and fast informations, requires the application

of a computerized technology. Here are other benefits of implementing the E-Health system in

medical field :

1. Increased efficiency or decreased costs.

2. Improving the quality of health services.

3. Proof of diagnosis through scientific evaluation.

4. Empowerment of patients and consumers.

5. Encouraging better relationships between patients and health workers.

6. Education for health workers and the community.

7. Encouraging the growth of communication and information exchange between health

service institutions.

8. Expanding the scope of health services.

In implementing this system, it is necessary to control several problems or potential problems

that will definitely arise during its application so that it can run well and planned. Here are the

problems that needs to be resolved:

1. Readiness of human resources

2. Readiness of the organizations involved

3. Work ethics

4. Technological developments and availability of infrastructure

5. Bureaucratic problems

6. The relationship between consumers and health workers

Conclusion

The general purpose of the M-Health application is to simplify and assist patients and health

workers to carry out post-diagnosis care of patient for a disease, this conveniences is in the form

of efficiency in terms of time and cost. Application-based M-Health on smartphones is

considered one of the technological advances that should be accepted by the wider community.

The shortcomings of the M-Health application itself are based on certain factors, some of which

are demographic factors: age and economy as well as lack of trust and patient's compliance with

the smartphone application. When patients already have the application on their mobile device

but are not used optimally and this affects the effectiveness of M-Health application in

therapeutic care.

The M-Health application is also very useful as a patient's medical record when visiting formal

health services (hospitals, clinics, health centers), this is intended to be more conclusions. The

M-Health application is a breakthrough to provide more sustainable health services. The

integration of M-Health technology in existing information systems has the potential to further

empower diabetes mellitus patients, improve the quality of community nursing services as well

as efficiency in terms of time and cost, but the lack of M-Health in its application is still hindered

by elderly, middle and lower communities and the incompleteness of the available application

features.

The application of a computer system in medical field can improve quality of a health service,

because by using this technology every job can be done more quickly, carefully and planned.
Computer technology is also very helpful for medical personnels to communicate with each

other and provide references to one another when handling medical problems for patients.

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