Mobile Devices in Healthcare

Self-management has proven to be a very apt approach to gaining desirable health outcomes amongst patients with diseases like Type II Diabetes (Alvarado et al., 2017). Through the use of smartphones, and smart watches, care providers are able to gain real time information on how patients are keeping to prescribed daily habits. The greatest barrier in this regard stems from technology illiteracy especially in low income populations. However, this can be overcome through a proactive initiative where health professionals formulate individualized strategies towards achieving patient centered health goals. Culturally suited educational activities can then be developed to motivate patients to keep to personalized plans (Alvarado et al., 2017). This will ensure they remain literate with respect to specific health intervention guidelines as offered by care providers.

The second barrier is associated with the issue of technology costs. Technologically astute health interventions can only be realized over commercial cellular networks. Smart devices and applications encompass only a one-time expenditure but continued utilization demands additional financing to attain the desired healthcare outcomes. However, a solution exists whereby patients can be duly informed by their healthcare providers on affordable services (Alvarado et al., 2017). For instance, unlimited text messaging packages as offered by service providers ought to be communicated to patients to enable full adherence to the prescribed interventions.

No organization is immune from the threat of cybercrime. However, the problem is exemplified by healthcare institutions failing to sufficiently secure networks. This is an issue of grave concern since hackers often expose sensitive patient information to other criminals existing in various black markets. To counter this worrying issue, nurses as well as other professionals in the field ought to capitalize on interprofessional collaborations with IT experts to seal any occurring loopholes. For instance, human error has been cited as the main blame for attacks on information systems. Through cooperation, IT specialists can enable nurses to embrace data security as part of their work ethic.

References

Alvarado, M. M., Kum, H.-C., Gonzalez Coronado, K., Foster, M. J., Ortega, P., & Lawley, M. A. (2017). Barriers to Remote Health Interventions for Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Proposed Classification Scheme. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(2), e28. http://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.6382