Innovations, implementation, and challenges of mobile health: a narrative review

Mobile health (mHealth) uses mobile communication technologies to provide new access to healthcare services and health information. This was a narrative review. This study aimed to review innovations, implementation, and challenges of mHealth, so as to investigate mHealth's potentials and limitations in improving the efficacy of healthcare services, optimizing healthcare resource distribution, and improving population health outcomes. PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were used to search mHealth-related literature published from 2015 to 2024. The application of health management software, such as MyFitnessPal and Health Buddy, in disease management, health education, and symptom monitoring was analyzed. Most of the included studies had small sample sizes or involved short-term interventions. The study results required validation through large-scale RCTs. mHealth faces challenges, such as technical compatibility, data security and privacy, user acceptance, cost issues, regulatory framework, network infrastructure, and clinical effectiveness. Most previous studies reviewing mHealth focus on a single disease or application of a single technology. This study examined the application of mHealth based on the World Health Organization's global strategy on digital health and China's national conditions. This study can provide a reference for mHealth policymakers and researchers.