Over the past few years, the development of mHealth has generated significant positive changes in many medical fields as it has helped to educate and raise people's health consciousness, improve patient helplines, support disease diagnosis and treatment, enhance training for health workers, boost remote patient monitoring, and facilitate data collection.
This is a market with great potential as the global mHealth market size was valued at with an estimated value of US$ 45.7 billion in 2020 with an average annual growth rate of 12.4%.
Given the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global mHealth market size is expected to reach US$ 361.67 billion in 2027, according to New York-based PR Newswire. The development of mHealth will benefit a number of industries including insurance services, manufacturers of smartphones with health tracking features, and software development.
In Vietnam, mHealth has emerged in recent years through the development of the application on treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) patients by V-Smart, and the mobile phone-based text message switchboard for smoking cessation by the Institute of Population, Health and Development (PHAD).
Many other applications have been launched, making important contributions to raising public awareness of COVID-19 prevention and control, including the website for health declarations at www.tokhaiyte.vn, and ‘So suc khoe dien tu’ - an electronic health book application that helps millions of citizens register online for vaccination against COVID-19.
In addition, mHealth is considered one of the crucial solutions in the digital transformation process of Vietnam's health sector in the near future. Recently, on August 8, 2021, the Ministry of Health officially launched the Telehealth Platform and debuted the National Technology Centre for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.
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The Telehealth Platform, launched on August 28, has contributed to bridging the disparity gap amongst healthcare facilities (Photo: nld.com.vn)
The platform, connected to all hospitals at the district levels, has contributed to bridging the gap in healthcare in the treatment of patients in critical conditions, particularly those with COVID-19, as these cases are consulted with by leading experts, instead of transferring them to higher-level hospitals.
However, the growth rate of mHealth in Vietnam is still modest as it has so far only focused on public health and general preventive medicine services, and not many major investors in Vietnam have shown much interest in this technology.
mHealth in Vietnam has not also yet met the expectations of people for a number of reasons, including software and applications are not really user friendly, and a lack of qualified doctors, health consultants, and nutritionists.
In addition, State agencies, organisations and innovative start-ups operation in mHealth are facing challenges in terms of fundraising, copyright issues, as well as data security for patients and clients.
The benefits of mobile healthcare in Vietnam are undeniable. With the great progress in artificial intelligence technology, machine learning, big data and advanced machinery, home treatment for patients under the remote supervision of doctors will soon become a reality. From a macro perspective, people will certainly benefit greatly from electronic health services and mHealth technology in particular.
However, it is necessary to have a consistent strategy and the full participation of all the functional agencies, businesses and organisations operating in health care sector, as well as medical professionals in order to turn mHealth’s benefits and effectiveness into a reality.
