mHealth: sorting the hype from the here-and-now

Laurie Orlov guest-posts over at Mobihealthnews with a bracing essay on mHealth hype and hysteria, ranging from CNBC’s ‘doomsday boomers’ bankrupting the world to GSMA’s new-found love of mHealth for growth ($6.1 billion by 2012, Datamonitor) and savings ($200 billion worldwide, GSMA).  And it winds up with a smackdown.  The ‘teles’ (telecare, telehealth and telemedicine) haven’t quite lived up to (fervid) expectations, so rebrand it as eHealth, subset mHealth, sweep up the ‘teles’ and voila, new and sexy category.  More hype, more stratospheric projections, conferences, articles, etc.  Naturally none of this solves the here-and-now problems of older and disabled people, plus their caregivers (professional and personal) who need assistive technology (another non-sexy term) now, which is simple, easy to adopt and bundles into a coherent (and adaptable) solution that won’t break the piggy bank.  Her final plea: get on with it already!  Article. Original post at her Aging in Place Technology website — see the comments.