"Pilotitus" in mHhealth Industry Addressed at the Connected World Forum in Dubai in November

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, August 08, 2012 --(PR.com)-- As the mobile industry is gearing itself to transform healthcare across the globe, industry experts and technology giants will gather in Dubai in November for the annual Mobile Health Global Summit & Expo as part of the Connected World Forum.

“The potential of mobile technologies for managing both chronic and acute disease is just beginning to be fully realised,” says Emma Pearce, Mobile Health Global 2012’s conference director. “No matter the marketplace, mobile phones are being harnessed to drive a permanent change in global healthcare. From preventing pandemics to changing patient attitudes and behaviour; mHealth is only just getting started.”

She says mobile technology will be instrumental in closing gaps in healthcare efficiency, tackling the global disease burden and transforming patient attitudes towards their own healthcare: “mHealth empowers people to be well through putting the patient at the heart of the ecosystem – and at the heart of their own healthcare.”

Too many mHealth pilots
According to Mobile Health Global 2012’s conference director, the impact, ease and cost-efficiency of mHealth technologies are prompting governments and donor agencies to invest more resources in mHealth initiatives; yet mHealth’s potential is being hampered by a lack of measurable deliverables. She notes: “this is what we call ‘pilotitus’ in the industry, where many NGOs get funded for relatively similar pilot projects and then there is no resource left to scale.”

More industry challenges that will be addressed at Mobile Health Global 2012 are patient centricity and data protection. Emma Pearce explains: “Some of the pertinent questions in the mHealth industry today are around how much access the patient should have to their own electronic health records, and who manages privacy of these records. Especially with the advent of Big Data and cloud computing, new systems of information collection and dissemination are being put into place across the mHealth ecosystem; but the regulation for the management of these records via these platforms is relatively non-existent.”

Mobile Health speaker highlights at the Connected World Forum include:

- Dr Husnia Sadat, Head of Health Financing, Government of Afghanistan
- Tikki Gee, Ministry of Health, Government of Singapore
- Dr N. Ndwapi, Office of Strategy Management, Ministry of Health, Government of Botswana
- Dr Abo Ismail Foshanji, mHealth Project Coordinator, Ministry of Health, Government of Afghanistan
- Santanu Biswas, Director of eHealth Services, du
- Dr Zakiuddin Ahmed, National Coordinator for Telemedicine and eHealth, Ministry of Health, Government of Pakistan
- Bleddyn Rees, Director, European Connected Health Alliance
- George MacGinnis, Continua Health Alliance

The Connected World Forum consists of three separate streams: Mobile Health, Mobile Money and Mobile Life.

Event dates:
19 November: Pre-conference workshop, Mobile Health Academy
20-21 November: Conference days
22 November: Post-conference workshop: Mobile Health Academy
Location: Dubai, UAE