Open mHealth Popular Standard (Part 2)

Andy OramNormally, one wants to break information down into chunks as small as possible. By doing this, you allow data holders to minimize the amount of data they need to send data users, and data users are free to scrutinize individual items or combine them any way they want. But some values in health need to be chunked together. When someone requests blood pressure, both the systolic and diastolic measures should be sent. The time zone should go with the time.

On the other hand, mHealth doesn’t need combinations of information that are common in medical settings. For instance, a dose may be interesting to know, but you don’t need the prescribing doctor, when the prescription was written, etc. On the other hand, some app developers have asked the prescription to include the number of refills remaining, so the app can issue reminders.

Thanks to the Open mHealth schema, a dialog has started between users and device manufacturers about what new items to include. For instance, it could include average blood sugar over a fixed period of time, such as one month...