Mobile Health Applications towards Sustainable Healthcare: A Healthcare Professionals’Perspective

The objective of the study is to explore and examine the contextual factors towards the long-term sustainability of mobile health applications, as well as determine the elements influencing the effective implementation of mHealth technology from the perspective of healthcare providers. The basic idea of this paper is to include multi-disciplinary commentaries of healthcare professionals to evaluate the sustainability aspects of mHealth applications. The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with healthcare experts and employs a Grounded Theory approach to explore and assess the efficacy and long-term sustainability of mHealth applications. A total of 12 healthcare practitioners were interviewed for the study. They were healthcare professionals, including medical practitioners and clinical consultants, as well as health researchers, academicians, specialists, and suppliers of healthcare apps. The findings depict that mHealth technology is widely beneficial in practices for healthcare management in the public health domain. To achieve sustainability of mHealth and realise its potential in public health governance, this assessment points out an integrated approach covering healthcare practitioners’ concerns and contextual considerations for effective implementation, sustainability, and scale-up of mHealth interventions.