Innovating and advancing handheld health: A global solution for scaling up mHealth technologies to control and prevent non-communicable diseases

Background.  Worldwide, the leading causes of death are non-communicable diseases (NCDs), resulting in profound social and economic costs.  Mobile health technologies (mHealth) encompass a range of evidence-based effective tools that can be used to reduce NCD burden.  Although NCD-oriented mHealth innovations have been implemented in several countries, a feasible global strategy for adapting and integrating these technologies has yet to emerge.

Objectives.  To propose a strategy for scaling up effective NCD-oriented mHealth interventions for global accessibility. To propose a method that can be used by health care and public health systems to deploy mHealth.

Methods.  The strategy includes four stages.  Stage 1 (target): Identify optimal global NCD initiatives to complement, convene stakeholders, cultivate strategic partnerships.  Stage 2 (build): Assemble a multidisciplinary technical advisory group to steer the adoption of universal health information technology interoperability standards, establish a globally representative open-source community to create a public-facing web and mobile app portal for proven mHealth technologies and services.  Stage 3 (diffuse): Launch the portal and continually target and engage end-users.  Stage 4 (evaluate): Collect and mine meaningful data to pinpoint NCD risk factors, measure effectiveness and outcomes associated with use of mHealth, determine indicators of success.

Conclusions.  The strategy jumpstarts global efforts to diffuse mHealth to control and prevent NCDs.  The portal serves as a centralized location for effective mHealth interventions.  The method includes criteria and models for interoperability, monitoring and evaluation, quality improvement, return on investment, and sustainability.  This strategy attempts to empower communities to build capacity to reduce incidence of NCDs.