Working with diverse partners, the mHealth Alliance (mHA) advances mHealth through research, advocacy, and support for the development of interoperable solutions and sustainable deployment models. The mHA, hosted by the United Nations Foundation, sponsors events and conferences, leads cross-sector mHealth initiatives, and hosts HUB (HealthUnBound), a global online community for resource sharing and collaborative solution generation.

Some FAQs about mHealth

Q. What is mHealth?

A. mHealth stands for mobile-based or mobile-enhanced solutions that deliver health. The ubiquity of mobile devices in the developed or developing world presents the opportunity to improve health outcomes through the delivery of innovative medical and health services with information and communication technologies to the farthest reaches of the globe.

Q. What is the mHealth Alliance vision?

A.  The mHealth Alliance seeks to mobilize innovation to deliver quality health services to the furthest reaches of the wireless networks. At the leading edge of the mHealth ecosystem, they seek to unite existing mHealth projects and guide governments, NGOs, and mobile firms to deliver innovative, interoperable solutions in the exploding mHealth field.

Q.  How did the mHealth Alliance begin?

A. The idea for the mHealth Alliance emanated from a July 2008 conference in Bellagio, Italy, on the future of mHealth, during which participants committed to forming a non-profit mHealth Alliance to maximize the impact of mobile health, especially in emerging economies, by ensuring interoperability and open-standards based solutions.

Launched at the GSM Mobile World Congress in February 2009 by the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation, and Vodafone Foundation, the mHA now includes the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the GSM Association among its founding partners.

Q. What are the key areas of focus for the mHealth Alliance in terms of public health problems?

A. The mHA is committed to ensuring the positive impact of mobile/ICT-based services across all health sectors, geographies and communities. The mHA has chosen to focus initially on maternal and child health with the inception and launching of the Maternal mHealth Initiative (MMI), as a way to model the potential of mHealth and developing the necessary reference models and prototype solutions. By focusing on mHealth solutions for the full continuum of maternal care, from pre to post-natal health, the mHA is able to identify a set of common needs that can also be applied to a wide variety of health areas.