ABSTRACT
mHealth integrates “smart systems” mobile technologies and solutions with enterprise and legacy systems, with mobile environments and with new care modalities. In a general context, a healthcare ecosystem describes the interplay of many factors, including the environment, personal attributes and relationships, cultural influences, technology and health resources that affect an individuals health status. The healthcare ecosystem places a strong emphasis on health promotion, wellness and prevention, as well as self management. The mHealth ecosystem supports emerging industry payment and delivery models, like performance-based reimbursement, accountable care organizations, the patient-centered medical home, meaningful use, aging-in-place and early intervention. Information is now portable, personalized and participatory, making a patient-centric mHealth ecosystem unbound by age, location or economic strata. But in the euphoria surrounding the mHealth ecosystem what often gets understated are sizeable hurdles to the mass adoption of mHealth tools and solutions.
