mHealth Solution in Bulgaria

Abstract

mHealth by definition is health care, realized through mobile devices for specialized procedures, information exchange, expertize and effects on patients and healthy way of life. As a technologically assisted action, it ensures dynamic unique interactions and contacts - temporary and permanent, on topics and problems of healthcare, as well as providing medical services to individuals and large contingents in unforeseeable circumstances and conditions.
The paper presents project of a network for provision of continuity of care with telemedical and telehealth services between Greece and Bulgaria which will: be based on the Internet and 3rd/4th generation GSM services; handle the medical records of citizens of both countries, allow the patients themselves or those responsible for their care to enter data or to utilize for this purpose electronic devices that can do the task automatically (e.g., glucose measuring devices, portable ECG machines, spirometry devices etc); permit the treating physician to continuously monitor his patient's progress from a distance; permit the diffusion and dissemination (to specific target groups) of health related information; use smart card technology to fortify the security of data contained in the patients' records and provide tele-education for the medical and paramedical personnel involved in the project.
mHealth applications ensure collection of health and clinical data, delivering health information and real-time monioring of vital signs, and direct provision of information in different stages of its acquisition and processing. Small and convenient size, low power consumption, they can be integrated almost everywhere: furniture, automobiles and even clothes. Mobile phones or personal digital assistants (PDA) with wireless networking capabilities, can serve as inputs to the processes of storage and transfer of recorded and measured parameters to clinicians, selected by their subsequent applications.
Patients, involved in the current project, using their mobile phones will be able to send and receive short text messages. They can initiate telephone calls related to health information and education, study therapeutic schemes for meetings and consultations, transport to health experts, even just for support and courage.