Farhaan Mirza

Mobile Health Opportunities in New Zealand: Perspectives of Health Planners and Practitioners Farhaan Mirza

The rapid adoption of mobile technology worldwide creates opportunities for using it in healthcare. The purpose of this book is to identify the barriers and opportunities of m-health in New Zealand. The practical part of the research used a qualitative research strategy, determined to be appropriate to obtaining a better understanding of any phenomena about which little is yet known. Interviews and questionnaires were used and the sample included a range of health planners and practitioners. The opportunities include monitoring, health alarms, patient engagement, community workers information integration, SMS reminders and alerts, working offsite, prescription feedback, and using mobile devices for electronic data capture. The barriers include legacy systems, disparate systems, lack of standards, lack of integration tools, lack of bandwidth, older health planners who are resistant to technology, ill population having the least uptake of technology, inability to share information with patients, development of mobile applications, infrastructure investment, telecommunication barriers, changed management, lack of technical capabilities, and cultural barriers.