American Journal of Modeling and Optimization, 2014, Vol. 2, No. 3, 73-76 Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajmo/2/3/2 © Science and Education Publishing DOI:10.12691/ajmo-2-3-2 mHealth: A Sustainable Healthcare Model for Developing World Sharmin Jahan 1 , M. Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury 2,* 1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Jahangirnagar Universtity, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Jahangirnagar Universtity, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh *Corresponding author: mozammel_ju@yahoo.com Received June 13, 2014; Revised August 01, 2014; Accepted August 19, 2014 Abstract Health is a basic requirement to improve the quality of life. Providing effective health care is an essential component towards the social and economic development of a country. A large number of people in the developing countries, particularly in rural and remote areas, remained with no or little access to health care facilities. However, recent emergence of mobile communication technologies could play in improving healthcare services. There is a great potential in using mHealth as one of the supportive systems within the healthcare sector to solve the inequalities in healthcare delivery between rural and urban hospitals. This research aims to evaluate the potentialities, issues and challenges of developing mobile healthcare system in the developing world. We have proposed a potential mHealth model based on mobile telecommunication networks. This research offers a set of guidelines to aid the implementation of a successful mobile healthcare system. Keywords: healthcare, mHealth, e-Health, mobile telecommunication Cite This Article: Sharmin Jahan, and M. Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury, “mHealth: A Sustainable Healthcare Model for Developing World.” American Journal of Modeling and Optimization, vol. 2, no. 3 (2014): 73-76. doi: 10.12691/ajmo-2-3-2. 1. Introduction Health care is one of the most important dependencies for economic sustainability and growth of a country. The national economic and social development depends on the state of health. Bangladesh as well as other developing countries are facing the challenges of quality healthcare. The emergence of smart mobile phones have created an unprecedented opportunity to provide healthcare services to unprivileged people in an instantaneous, interactive and customized way. Mobile health, popularly known as mHealth is transforming healthcare delivery by making it more accessible, affordable and available [1]. The use of mobile devices has significantly improved information access, enhanced workflow, and promoted evidence-based practice to make informed and effective decisions directly at the point of care [2]. mHealth has already been deployed for remote collection of various health data, remote monitoring, and improved living standards of patients using mobile devices [3]. The term mHealth, a subset of eHealth or electronic health was coined by Robert Istepanian as use of “emerging mobile communications and network technologies for healthcare" [4]. A definition used at the 2010 mHealth Summit of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) was "the delivery of healthcare services via mobile communication devices such as mobile phones, smart phones, PDAs, laptops and tablet PCs” [5]. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report [6], higher-income countries show more mHealth activity than do lower-income countries. Countries in the European Region are currently the most active and those in the African Region the least active. The WHO notes an extreme deficit within the global healthcare workforce. According to WHO, 57 countries have critical shortages in health care workers, with a total deficit of 2.4 million health professionals worldwide. The study finds an average density of physicians, nurses and midwives per 1000 population of 0.64 in twelve countries of Africa. The density of the same metric is four times as high in the United States, at 2.6. mHealth has emerged in recent years as largely an application for developing countries, stemming from the rapid rise of mobile phone penetration. Because of the size, portability, low power consumption and ability to operate with limited infrastructure, mobile phones are better platforms to provide health services in the developing countries. In this context, mHealth largely emerges as a means of providing greater access to larger segments of a population in developing countries, as well as improving the capacity of health systems in such countries to provide quality healthcare [7,8,9]. 2. mHealth Classifications mHealth systems can be classified according to the characteristics of the source and destination of the medical information flow [10]: