Authors:
Joshua D. Cameron
1
;
Arkalgud Ramaprasad
2
and
Thant Syn
3
Affiliations:
1
University of Miami, United States
;
2
University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
;
3
Texas A&M International University, United States
Keyword(s):
Mobile Health, Ontology.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Biomedical Engineering
;
Cloud Computing
;
Distributed and Mobile Software Systems
;
e-Health
;
Health Engineering and Technology Applications
;
Health Information Systems
;
Mobile Technologies
;
Mobile Technologies for Healthcare Applications
;
Neural Rehabilitation
;
Neurotechnology, Electronics and Informatics
;
Platforms and Applications
;
Software Engineering
Abstract:
mHealth research has been growing exponentially in recent years. But, without a clear definition of the mHealth domain, the research has been ad hoc and selective. A roadmap is necessary to guide the research and harness mHealth’s full potential. We present an ontology of mHealth to define its domain. We map the extent research on mHealth in 2014 onto the ontology and highlight the frequency of coverage of different topics. We discuss how (a) a frequently researched topic may be important, but may also be simply easy, convenient, and overemphasized; (b) an infrequently researched topic may be unimportant, but may also be simply difficult, inconvenient, and underemphasized; (c) and an unresearched topic may have been overlooked or simply infeasible. We then discuss how the emphases can be balanced in the roadmap for mHealth. Using ontological mapping the roadmap can be updated periodically to assess and guide mHealth research.