Pervasive Mobile Health

Abstract

Pervasive mobile health is mobile health that provides healthcare services accessible regardless of time and place with patients can continuously be connected through their smart mobile devices. It offers healthcare providers a more comprehensive perspective of patients' condition and thus aid in achieving complex healthcare goal(s) such as building lasting relationships with patients. The service can be further extended to accommodate customers' participation in health and healthcare processes to improve healthcare services by extending roles of patients. The advancement of the Web technologies, especially social networks, push eHealth to embrace mobile devices (mHealth) and personalize customers centric services with a possibility to extend and improve services by enabling active participation of patients, patient's families, and the community at large in healthcare processes and personal health decision making. This chapter addresses some important concepts of mHealth, challenges, future trends, and some related terminologies to provide a holistic view of mHealth.