In the last decade, mobile health (mHealth) has developed as a natural consequence of the advances in mobile technologies, the growing spread of mobile devices, and their application in the provision of novel health services. mHealth has demonstrated the potential to make the health care sector more efficient and sustainable and to increase the healthcare quality. Considering the boost to the healthcare area which will be provided by mHealth, many organizations and governments have engaged in innovating in this area. In this context, this work investigated the role of innovation in the area of mHealth for patient monitoring in order to determine the trends and the performance of the innovation activities in this domain. Proxy indicators, like intellectual property statistics and scientific publication statistics, were utilized to measure the outputs of innovation during the period of time from 2006 to 2015 in Europe. Two studies were performed to provide quantitative measures for the indicators measuring innovation outputs in the domain of mHealth for patient monitoring and three main conclusions were observed. First, even if there was a lot of research in Europe in mHealth for patient monitoring, the vast majority of the enterprises did not protect their inventions. Second, a strong research collaboration in the area of mHealth for patient monitoring took place between researchers affiliated to institu- tions of different European countries and even with researchers working in Asian or American institutions. Finally, an increasing trend on the number of published articles about mHealth for patient monitoring was identified. Therefore, the findings of the studies demonstrated the great interest that has arisen the field of mHealth and the huge involvement in innovation activities in the area of mHealth for patient monitoring.

1. Analysis of the
Innovation Outputs
in mHealth
for Patient Monitoring
C. Villalonga, H. Pomares, O. Baños
SUT4Coaching – IUCC16
15/12/2016

2. 1
Introduction

3. mHealth …
“medical and public health practice supported by mobile
devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices,
personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices”
World Health Organization (2011). mHealth: new horizons for health through
mobile technologies: second global survey on eHealth

4. “… also includes applications such as lifestyle and
wellbeing apps that may connect to medical devices or
sensors (e.g. bracelets or watches) as well as personal
guidance systems, health information and medication
reminders provided by sms and telemedicine provided
wirelessly”
European Commission (2014) . Green Paper on mobile Health

5. Potential to boost the
healthcare sector,
making it more efficient
and more sustainable,
and increasing the healthcare quality.

6. “Analysis of the trends of
innovation in the domain of
mHealth for patient monitoring”

7. Measuring Innovation
2

8. Innovation indicators:
Innovation input
- Resources devoted to R&D
Innovation output
- Intellectual property statistics
- Scientific publications statistics
Innovation impact
- Turnover
- Employment
OECD and Eurostat (2005). Oslo Manual
OECD (2015). Frascati Manual
OECD (2015). OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2015

9. Studies:
Patents in mHealth
Scientific publications in
mHealth
1
Scope:
European market
2006-2015 (10 years)
2

10. Patents in mHealth
Scope:
European market
2006-2015 (10 years)

11. Data collection from EPO’s database
150 patents about mobile
patient monitoring
Data processing (manual classification)
54 patents about mHealth
for patient monitoring
Data analysis
Patents in mHealth

12. Patents in mHealth
Trends
- 6 inventions monitored glucose level
- 5 inventions monitored ECG or heart rate
- 12 inventions proposed a method for signaling
alerts when the monitored data reached certain
conditions
Geographical
location
Evolution
Type

13. Scientific publications
in mHealth
Scope:
European market
2006-2015 (10 years)

14. Data collection from Scopus’ database
Scientific publications in
mHealth
Data processing (manual classification)
Data analysis
366 journal articles and book
chapters about mHealth
114 journal articles and book
chapters about mHealth for
patient monitoring

15. Trends
- 17 publications monitoring ECG or heart rate
- 12 publications monitoring the glucose level
- 11 publications sensing movement to detect
activities or falls
Scientific publications in
mHealth
Evolution
Type

16. Scientific publications in
mHealth
International collaborations
… in 40 (out of 114) publications
… 25 with non-EU countries
… 15 with other EU countries
Geographical location
(institution of the first author)
Remarks
Scientific production of EU institutions is considerable but
European inventions are mostly not protected.

17. Conclusions
3

18. Trends & performance of innovation
in mHealth for patient monitoring
Proxy indicators of
innovation outputs
Patent
statistics
Scientific
publications
statistics
measured via

19. Great interest in mHealth and
huge involvement in innovation
activities in mHealth for patient
monitoring
• High scientific production
• Low protection of inventions
• Strong collaboration between
EU and North America and
Asia

20. Questions
Oresti Banos
Telemedicine Cluster, Biomedical Signal and Systems Group
Center for Telematics and Information Technology
University of Twente
o.banoslegran@utwente.nl