mHealth is catching up and is now being considered to be used globally not only in the area of healthcare but also in the Pharma and Life sciences areas. This document speaks briefly about how mobility can be effectively used in Clinical Trials.

1. The Healthcare and Medical Research field is experiencing rapid transitions. With
continuous innovation in technologies, healthcare is bringing many better facets of
treatment and patient care forward, giving the patients the best of healthcare experience
that one could receive.
With the growth and ease to access internet and other upcoming technologies, there have
been a plethora of changes happening across industries and the Healthcare and Medical
Research industries are no exception to it.
As on today, the mere definition of healthcare initiatives for hospitals has broadened its
horizons from just dispensing basic “treatment” to having more patient concentric
services and thus, satisfaction. In this era, with technologies such as internet and mobiles
playing a pivotal role in our lives, ensure that such services are within the reach of the
common man and patients coming from different socio-economic strata. Well, what we
are talking about is bringing on board a smoother registration processes, better patient
care in the hospital premises, improved pre-operative observation and post operative care
and a robust administration tool. It is a fact that hospital staff and doctors spend large
amounts of time in capturing and accessing patient information, which can be reduced to
a great extent using a combination of internet’s allied services and mobile technology.
Getting quicker and accurate information for quick decision making and actions that are
more “to the point” oriented are just some key advantages of mobility services in a
healthcare environment and which is the need of the hour.
While the in-hospital service and experience is commendable today, there still is a large
gap in terms of monitoring patients once prescribed to a particular treatment or
discharged post treatment. It is quite a hassle for physicians and doctors to keep a track
on patients’ health status and there is an innate requirement of continuously monitoring a
patient’s health given the support that we can get from technology.
Although there are ways and means for keeping a check on the patient’s status of health,
we must look at new and innovative ways that are not only simple to use but are
omnipresent. If one gets to thinking, the only common denominator that exists across
different societal levels is a mobile phone, from a vegetable vendor to an auto-rickshaw
driver to a high flying business or corporate person; most of them carry at least one
mobile device if not two.
2012
Mobile Phones “Always
There Always On” – Why Not
Use It to Enhance Patient
Compliance, Trial
Effectiveness and Reduce
Trial Cost
Vikrant Patnaik
Head Marketing and Comm.
N O W P O S M - S O L U T I O N S

2. Mobile Phones “Always There Always On” – The new tool Patient Monitoring Tool
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The introduction to smart phones:
With the different types of mobile phones available in the market, access and
affordability has increased multifold. Mobile devices with the latest features such as
touch, internet, applications and 3G have made it an extremely handy device that can
perform almost everything at the push of a button or a mere “touch”. Healthcare and self
care application can be developed allowing both patients and the medical fraternity to use
it for multiple functions. Custom enterprise level applications can be developed for
hospital staff for better hospital and patient management. With robust and secure back
end web based functions to support, the turn around time can be improved by many folds.
Some areas in Healthcare that can use mobile technology:
1. Patient Monitoring
2. Treatment Adherence
3. Geriatric care and wellness
4. Post operative care and follow up
5. Remote Patient Data Capture
6. Chronic Disease Management
7. Ante natal and maternity care
8. Rural health
9. Stepping up from EMR (Electronic Medical Records) to MMR (Mobile Medical
Records)
10. Hospital bed side monitoring systems using mobile technology and many more
There are several areas where mobile technology can be used to improve efficiency, save
time and costs in Healthcare institutions and regulated research, including clinical trials.
Some of the key areas that encompass the use of mobile and internet technologies with
some business concepts and implementation techniques are discussed ahead.
Patient records in hospitals are an important source of information for medical
practitioners and the hospital staff to take critical decisions. With primitive methods still
being used largely to capture medical records, a systematic and compliant system to
record, store and retrieve information is the need of the hour for instant and real time data
capture and viewing by the medical staff. An instance of which would be, key patient
records should be entered and found quickly in the doctor /nurse/ HOD‘s mobile phone
and further can also be checked on their computers. Nurses can provide real time patient
health status information to the doctors from the patient’s bed side using a mobile phone
that allows every nurse to log in with a unique id thus keeping all patients information

3. Mobile Phones “Always There Always On” – The new tool Patient Monitoring Tool
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and transaction secure and audit trailed, thereby saving time on multiple rounds to all
wards, resources, reducing logistics and space to store and keep all these paper based
records. In multi-specialty hospitals, huge paper inventories are made on a day to day
basis, which makes retrieval of records delayed and more tedious. Being aware of the fact
that time is something that is most precious in a hospital environment; such delays make
patient experience sour, making them frustrated. A simple and handy method of patient
data collection such as using the mobile phone will save hospital staff from the burden of
tedious pen and paper data capture, storage and retrieval. Since the security of patient
data is important, the information can be stored in compliant server farms that follow
global standards of compliance regulations and security guidelines.
It thus makes a lot of sense for a healthcare institution or an organization to ramp up their
turn around time in terms of internal operations etc.
At this point, our thoughts should be more oriented towards “Patient Care and the
Patient” wherein the present day technology should be leveraged, to be at par with the
fast approaching future and the growing competition globally.
The opportunity and its cost implications:
Using latest trends and technologies in a sector that evades changes is a challenge. The
benefits of technology can be explained and quantified with a credible ROI (Return on
Investment).
1. Patient Health – The most important fact on which the healthcare industry thrives
is the patients’ health status and being, which directly or indirectly brings a cost
value to the organization implementing such solutions. Better healthcare service
and patient experience brings in belief and faith towards a particular institution
and thereby more loyalty towards a particular brand – “building up Brand Equity”
2. Cutting short the turn around time – “Time is money” –Need we discuss more
3. More time for doctors to spend with patients rather than going for multiple rounds
in a day or their working hours. While we understand the importance of the
delicate doctor – patient relationship and believe it to be important, the time for
such activities can be reduced and doctors can focus on consulting more patients
thereby improving their overall efficiency and productivity.
4. Automatic storage of data in the central HIS servers would allow reduce logistics
and administration and ensure quick retrieval of data as against a paper based
approach. Thereby saving on time and money both
5. Treatment Adherence – Reminder systems can be made available for patients
where in they can be reminded to take their medication with follow ups and with

4. Mobile Phones “Always There Always On” – The new tool Patient Monitoring Tool
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features such as acknowledgements allowing them to confirm their medication
intake or other treatment related tasks. Doctors can use their computer systems to
track the compliance levels of the patients thereby being sure their patient’s health
is monitored on a regular basis. Reminders could also be sent as interventional
messages and for doctors’ visits, which would ensure that the patient will come
for his/her visit.
On the whole we are looking at a considerable Return on Investment for hospitals and
healthcare institutions over a period of time. It may not be quantifiable right now, but
industry experts state that Mobility is the next big thing to happen to Healthcare and
Medical Research.
Several other areas in the Healthcare sector can benefit from mobile technology, some of
which are widely known but less used. Industries globally have been using mobile
technology and reaping benefits from it. We, at NowPos, want to go a step further and
spread the technology to the Healthcare and Clinical research industries and help global
Healthcare providers gain more while improving patient monitoring by providing them
with our mobile competencies. It would be our primary motto and consistent effort to
keep the healthcare fraternity educated and execute such advancements and initiatives
towards making the patient’s health better.