Future of the Smartphone for Patients and Healthcare Providers

Mobile health (m-health) uses mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, PDAs, and other wireless devices 1. However, the smartphone is the most popular and attractive device in m-health. Actually, the m-health market has grown rapidly since the emergence of the smartphone. A hospital in Korea reported that an iPhone-based mobile Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system developed in 2010 was accessed over 200 times more frequently than a PDA-based mobile EMR system developed in 2004, although the PDAbased one had more invaluable clinical functions 2. Other hospitals may have had a similar experience. A smartphone is a mobile device, but it is different from other cellular phones or PDAs in terms of computing power (smartness), sensors, and connectivity 3,4. Connectivity encompasses not only network connectivity, but also social media and wearable devices. These features enable the smartphone to work as an essential tool for m-health. Last year, Eric Topol wrote a column for Wall Street Journal entitled, The Future of Medicine Is in Your Smartphone 4. Such perspectives can be found in several medical journals. 'medicalized' smartphone is becoming more familiar to biomedical informaticians in Korea. Is the future of medicine really in the smartphone? Which practices can be carried out with a smartphone? What is needed for the smartphone to be the future of medicine? As of 2014, 64% of American adults owned a smartphone, and 62% of smartphone owners had used their phones to look up information about a health condition 5. number of iOS apps including health and fitness groups increased from about 43,000 in 2013 to 98,000 in 2015 6. Such growth is not confined to m-health apps. Internet of Things in the healthcare market is expected to be 117 billion US dollars in 2020 7. Regardless of the accuracy of the report, the m-health market seems to be experiencing explosive growth, but the m-health market for healthcare is lagging far behind or is still in an early stage. Apps for disease-specific information (9%), medication reminders themes are limited to development, usage patterns, user's characteristics, etc. M-health's impact on clinical workflow, patient satisfaction, patient outcome, patient safety, and cost reduction should be investigated. effectiveness of mobile EMR to HCPs and of mobile PHR to patients should be determined. Methods to evaluate how helpful wearable devices are in clinical practice and how to make these devices more helpful for patient and clinicians should be researched. 'Medicalized' smartphones in Korea are waiting to be evaluated by biomedical informaticians.