With mobile health (mHealth), doctors can remotely monitor the well-being of their patients, making medical care more efficient and accessible. This can include anything from using a pacemaker to detect cardiac arrest, monitoring blood sugar levels with diabetic bracelets, sharing a prenatal patient’s sonograms on a personal tablet or smartphone, or even wearable technology that can provide a myriad of health benefits by monitoring good and bad habits like eating, sleeping, sitting too much or too much exertion. While mHealth is making healthcare more convenient overall, it is particularly beneficial to those in rural areas who may be far from the nearest healthcare facility.
According to Berg Insight, an estimated 2.8 million patients worldwide used a connected medical device for remote monitoring of their health in 2012 (this doesn’t include the use of mobile apps or tablets). This number is expected to break 9.4 million by 2017. With so many people relying on the capabilities of mHealth, it is critical that the connected devices function properly. This isn’t possible without access to adequate wireless network coverage. As so many are now trusting their health—and even their lives—to mHealth, anticipating where connected devices will--and perhaps even more importantly will not—work is vital. However, this is no small feat due to rapidly expanding 4G/LTE networks, lack of coverage in some rural areas, a dynamic spectrum landscape and complex mobile roaming relationships with limited quality of service (QoS) measures.
It is pivotal that both medical device manufacturers and mHealth providers are able to not only access network coverage data, but also be able to communicate it to both current and potential customers. This has become possible with today’s geospatial network intelligence tools: accurate and timely network data that can assist in strategic planning for the rollout of connected devices, managing customer needs and expectations and making sound business decisions grounded in a solid information base.
The secret to success: Intelligent network coverage tools
As noted above, mHealth devices can only be successful when they have access to reliable networks. To view network availability in any area, a prime geospatial intelligence tool for both providers and device manufacturers is multi-level coverage. By visualizing network coverage data across different layers, providers and manufacturers can easily view the strength and weakness of any given network. For the device to be effective, it is essential for it to be on a network strong enough to penetrate homes, hospitals and assisted living communities, or while traveling. “Good, better, best” signal strength data available in multi-level coverage tools effectively lends strategic data to help a provider better understand where a device should or should not be deployed.
Another point to consider is the customer’s expectations—will the device work at home, around the neighbourhood or even when on the road? Interactive coverage mapping tools showing network type—such as 3G or 4G—and network availability in specific areas that can be accessed on the customer’s mobile device or on their home computer can drive down customer and technical support costs as well as customer churn. It’s also an effective way to drive up customer satisfaction since they can see exactly where their mHealth device will and will not work. By providing not only network availability data, but also access to network coverage, spectrum, demographics and other technology data, these geospatial intelligence tools make it easier to understand the complex wireless arena to enable better business decisions.
Expanding to rural areas
While there has been significant progress with wireless network expansion, the public’s reliance on mHealth access continues to outpace network availability in many rural areas. Fortunately, this expansion continues to progress thanks to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Connect America Fund that economically incentivizes operators’ rural expansion efforts. Each operator also has its own initiatives including adding scale, increasing buying power, and creating relationships and network synergies that will meet the needs of rural subscribers. In addition, geospatial data intelligence encompassed in multi-level coverage and interactive mapping tools can help operators make better, more strategic decisions about expanding their wireless footprint across rural areas.
Avoiding the mHealth flat line
mHealth was merely a dream ten years ago, but today it is an accelerating market, which should not come as a surprise considering how wireless our world has become. Reliable network coverage with the right device technology is a priority in making mHealth a success in any area, but especially in the rural markets. When used in coordination with device and carrier network data, multi-level coverage and interactive mapping tools and services will help make network expansions in rural areas more strategic instead of a guessing game, bringing reliable mHealth services to more end users.
