mHealth

This book defines the phenomenon of mHealth and its evolution, explaining why an understanding of mHealth is critical for decision makers, entrepreneurs and policy analysts who are pivotal to developing products that meet the collaborative health information needs of consumers and providers in a competitive and rapidly-changing environment. The book examines trends in mHealth and discusses how mHealth technologies offer opportunities for innovators and entrepreneurs, those who often are industry first-movers with regard to technology advancement. It also explores the changing dynamics and relationships among physicians, patients, insurers, regulators, managers, administrators, caregivers and others involved in the delivery of health services. The primary focus is on the ways in which mHealth technologies are revising and reshaping healthcare delivery systems in the United States and globally and how those changes are expected to change the ways in which the business of healthcare is conducted.

mHealth: Transforming Healthcare consists of nine chapters that addresses key content areas, including history (to the extent that dynamic technologies have a history), projection of immediate evolution and consistent issues associated with health technology, such as security and information privacy and government and industry regulation. A major point of discussion addressed is whether mHealth is a transient group of products and a passing patient encounter approach, or if it is the way much of our health care will be delivered in future years with incremental evolution to achieve sustainable innovation of health technologies.

Donna Malvey, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Health Management and Informatics at the University of Central Florida. She received her Master’s Degree in Health Services Administration from the George Washington University, completed an administrative residency and postgraduate fellowship in health systems at the VA Medical Center in Washington, D. C. and earned her Ph.D. in Administration-Health Services at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has published extensively in the health care field and most recently co-authored The Retail Revolution in Health Care, published by Praeger 2010, which examined the silent revolution in affordable health care delivery that is being driven by the private sector. Malvey has worked in a variety of health care settings and served as the executive director of a national trade association, representing health professionals in private practice. She also has worked as a congressional aide on Capitol Hill.

Donna J. Slovensky, Ph.D., RHIA, FAHIMA, is a Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has been on the UAB faculty for more than 35 years, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in strategic management, quality management and information management prior to her current administrative role as Associate Dean in the School of health Professions. Dr. Slovensky’s publications include journal articles, textbook chapters and cases. She is a contributing author to Health Information: Management of a Strategic Resource, a leading text in health information management in its fourth edition and co-author of Information Systems Management, in its 8th edition.