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Paul, as chairman of the Council on the Future of Mobile Communications,
why did your council decide to focus on mHealth now?
When we started the Council on Future of Mobile Communications,
we were focused on a few areas, getting ubiquitous access,
looking at applications of wireless technology,
and also looking at the impact on user’s privacy and user’s data.
But I really wanted to focus the council on something that was both actionable
and something that would really leverage the strength of the forum
which is to convene experts in the field and policymakers.
And it seemed like mobile health was a great application
of wireless technology because with five billion users on cell phones
it really is humanity’s most pervasive platform and I think most people
would agree that healthcare is probably one of humanity’s most pervasive problems.
and so by using the phone we can provide real time monitoring to people,
we can provide collection of data for monitoring diseases out in the field,
and we really can make medicine much more personalized
both in developed and developing markets.
From your perspective, what’s the most important opportunity
for mobile communications in the healthcare space?
The idea that we can use the phone for monitoring people in real time means
that we can really help a lot in terms of both wellness
and chronic care management.
Chronic care, at least in the United States,
accounts for about 75 percent of the healthcare budget,
so it’s a huge, huge issue.
and one of the biggest things about chronic care
is that many of these diseases are preventable and when people get them,
they are susceptible to treatment but you really have to make sure
that people are complying with their treatment regimen.
and by having the phone there to help remind them
or to communicate to their healthcare professional,
that will help on chronic care.
So I think the biggest opportunities are around wellness
and chronic care management.
What do you expect as an outcome of this mHealth Summit?
Well, the best thing that happens at this mHealth Summit
is we bring together experts from the wireless industry
and experts from the healthcare industry. and what we found in the past,
when you get the convergence of two industries,
it’s really the people who understand the issues
of both industries that are able to make progress.
By bringing people together to network and to learn from each other
that’s going to allow us to make progress in a much more substantial fashion and,
really, in a focused manner.
And so today one of the things that we’ve done
is we’ve broken down five key areas in the healthcare arena
which will be addressed by three, kind of, enabling concepts.
and we’re gonna bring all these experts together for both wireless
and healthcare and we’re going to, hopefully,
come out with some really good ideas for how to take the next steps
in the mobile health progress.