subject: Federal Government Funds 150 Mobile Health Grant Projects [print this page] Last week at the mHealth summit, the federal government announced plans to launch an online health data website. Todd Park, CTO at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced the open health data campaign on the HealthData.gov site would be released in December, providing a wealth of information for developers of mobile health apps. The site would provide information about childhood obesity, smoking cessation rates and all kinds of other important research data, according to an article by Kenneth Corbin, EnterpriseMobileToday.com.
Federal Government Funds 150 Mobile Health Grant Projects
HHS sits on an extraordinary array of data, that if made easily accessible to the public could help consumers, patients, providers and community leaders make better decisions to improve health, Park said. Its the goal of our open health data initiative to do exactly that.
Our open health data campaign is turning HHS into the NOAA of health data, Park said. The health information that HHS site will provide will be easily accessible and downloadable, he said, adding that like NOAAs data sets, the new site will be without intellectual property constraint, aiming for the broadest possible application.
The National Health Institute is a giant medical research arm of the federal government. The NHI is now taking a more active role in funding mobile health IT projects. In 2005 there were only 30 grants given for mobile health research. This year the number is up to almost 150 grants and expected to grow rapidly over the next few years.
Mobile health IT services range from simple and free to hugely complicated and expensive. There are free apps for Smartphones like the Text4Baby program for new and pregnant mothers, as well as mood monitoring apps for our service people and veterans. Then there are the extensive patient diagnostic and monitoring programs accessible from cell phones, which are costly but provide a more in depth level of patient care.
Mobile health IT services are really important for the developing countries. For example, a device being used by Massachusetts General Hospital in Uganda collects treatment information for HIV patients and remotely monitors lapses in taking their antiviral medications. For pregnant women living in remote areas, midwives using cell phones and mobile health technology can connect to monitor fetal heartbeats, or use remote ultrasounds. The list goes on and on. As more mobile health apps are developed, the people of the developing countries will benefit greatly, encouraging and promoting much better global health.
The federal government is taking on the role of the good guy in mobile health development. I say thumbs up! Major kudos for the feds. But the U.S. isnt the only government doing so. Within the U.N. there is a push for more research and development of mobile health IT. The potential is incredible. Perhaps we humans have discovered that we are a global community.
