Mobile Computing And Social Network Research Paper

Mobile Computing And Social Network - Research Paper Example Currently, mobile computing technology has profound impact on health care management. Recently, a number of devices have been developed to work with an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad for the purpose of recording patient’s health information including blood pressure, blood glucose levels, oxygen levels, and heart rate. This paper will discuss the impacts of mobile computing technology in the field of health care management. Mobile computing technology Vs traditional practices It is evident that vital signs are central components of patient care and they mainly include body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose levels, respiratory rate, and other measurements. Today, all these vital signs can be recorded and tracked using mobile computing technology. In the recent past, patients were required to consult a physician or go to a clinical laboratory to check for these vital signs. Under this practice, physicians or sometimes nurses record the patient’s vital sig ns manually and document the signs on a piece of paper or store them in a mobile computer. Once the testing process ended, it would take a fairly long time to record the documented data on electronic charts using computers. As clinical practitioners usually point out, it is very difficult to take vital signs in some cases due to multiple reasons (‘Vital signs and measurements’). ... Currently, smart phones and broadband-enabled devices assist patients to monitor their own vital signs frequently and to upload the result to clinical servers of healthcare providers. According to, Fernandes, Afonso, and Simoes (n .d.), chances of errors are relatively less under this method. Using this technology, patients can easily make video conference calls and obtain instant health suggestions from medical providers. Experts suggest that this technology represents an effective approach to disease prevention and health care. Currently, hospitals also use mobile computing to provide patients with quality health care services. Advantages and disadvantages of using mobile computing technology The advantages of using mobile computing technology to monitor patients are countless. Firstly, this technology promotes the concept of preventive healthcare as it is characterized with frequent monitoring of vital signs, enhanced patient-doctor interactions, and enhanced information exchange. Another major advantage is that it makes healthcare accessible to even geographically remote patients who otherwise cannot obtain timely and improved healthcare services (Turisco & Case, 2001). Evidently, mobile computing increases the accuracy of patient records. Convenience of time is considered to be another notable benefit of application of mobile computing in healthcare. Since patients can monitor their vital signs from home using this technology, they need not to travel to hospitals frequently and can save their valuable time. Undoubtedly, this technology assists people to cut down healthcare costs including lab expenses and service charges. The mobile technology is helpful to identify various symptoms at the beginning stages so