Mhealth

The Medicalization of Consumer Devices

Abstract

Web-based applications (email, websites, portals) have long been the favoured digital modality for interacting with the public in health care, in part because they enable institutional control of the flow of health data. But today, smartphones are becoming the default portal in many people’s daily lives. Their presence is increasingly felt in health care, whether as a means of connecting patients with practitioners or satisfying a desire for instant access to health information.