Mobile technology may cut health care costs

If you were to purchase a mobile phone today, more likely than not the country of origin will be China. This is trues of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola. If you live in an English speaking country, your hotline calls will be directed to a call centre in India.

The GNP growth in these two countries is 8-10 per cent annually, whereas the Western countries are falling behind. India and China are no longer sweat shops with nothing to offer but cheap labour. They are the epicentre of progress, and we are no longer in the driver’s seat in terms of innovation and development. We are actually confined to the back seat of a vehicle headed east. Several major, international companies are relocating their R&D departments to Asia, and large Danish companies are following in their footsteps. Moving new thinking to the other side of earth simply makes good sense.

This trend contributes to a price pressure on technology, and falling prices result in even better opportunities to use the technology in new and unconventional contexts. Prices in mobile technology have taken a dive, and nothing suggests that anything is breaking this fall.  

Health care is an area that stands to gain from the inexpensive mobile technology over the next few years. We have seen the incipience, but there is still a long way to go.  

Denmark and many other Western are seeing a significant pressure on health budgets, which makes prevention the obvious cost-cutting measure as hospitalisation would thus be avoided. 

Already, mobile technology offers a substantial potential for the individual and ensures continuous health monitoring:

1. Monitoring can be used to control weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and activity level 

2. GPS which can be used to localise dementia patients and as surveillance alarms in private homes

3. Reminders to patients to alert them that it is time to take their medicine  

4. Distance diagnoses

All in all something that can contribute to getting more than our money’s worth in healthcare. And all thanks to the rapid development in technology.  

 The lynchpin of the matter is to spend money on new mobile technology now. The investments required will pay for themselves in a very short period of time, and they may even cut costs in this area. But the essence is that we secure better and safer conditions for the group of Danes that are in the hands of the Danish health care system.

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