The key to effective mobile health monitoring is turning the data collected into actionable interventions based on personalized care models – in other words, personalized alerting.
A mobile health monitoring system with a software-based rules engine can track information clinicians can use to establish baselines indicating an individual’s health and wellness. Then alerts will be triggered when changes occur – changes that could indicate an underlying concern.
For example, constant trips to the bathroom and/or a fever could indicate a UTI, a common cause of falls in older people. Using inferences with such data allows for early intervention to prevent a fall and potential hospitalization – or re-hospitalization.
Caregivers, users and their families can appreciate an electronic safety net, especially when it’s unobtrusive in the form of a wristwatch yet equipped with a variety of powerful sensors to track vitals and activities of daily living.
And beyond the walls of a health care environment, such a system should provide mobile duress alerting with enhanced location support so a user can be found more quickly if in distress.
Mobile health monitoring has important implications for chronic disease management, fall prevention, reducing hospital readmissions, and aging in place with greater dignity and independence.
