You’ve Heard of Big Data. Learn about Small mHealth, at Tuesday’s Broadband Breakfast Club

April 15, 2013 – You’ve heard of “big data.” Well, now its time to learn about “small mHealth.”

At Tuesday’s Broadband Breakfast Club, we’ll be learning about “Mobile Health: Will Wireless Devices Help Solve the Nation’s Health Crises?” We’ve got an impressive lineup, including a keynote presentation by Jacob Reider, the Chief Medical Officer at Health and Human Services’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

Just as big data is bringing computing power, Web 2.0 social networking, and broadband connectivity to harness data-driven decision-making, this new trend — mobile health — is putting life-saving devices into the pocket of every citizen.

Two things are driving this mobile broadband mini-revolution:

1. Even if all of us weren’t born mobile, we’re all becoming mobile citizens.

2. Smart phones remember to do all the things we human forget to do because we rather wouldn’t

Big data put  social science researchers and Twitter fanatics on the same page. Small mHealth promises to unite the medical profession with the texting teenager and his diabetic grandmother — if regulatory, privacy, and platform development challenges can be overcome.

Among the panelists participating will be Robert Jarrin, senior director of government affairs for Qualcomm, one of the leading players in the mobile world. It was Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs that popularized the phrase “born mobile,” and with it, the kinds of vista that are opened up by small mHealth.

Also joining Jarrin will be Joel White, executive director of the Health IT Now! Coalition, a Washington group trying to sort out some of the platform complications of mobile health; and Deven McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Reider will also participate on the panel, which will be moderated by TRDaily’s Senior Editor Paul Kirby.

A casual glace at the marketplace confirms that consumers are flocking to health apps on their smart phones. In the “Last Gadget Standing” event at the Consumer Electronics Show, attendees were invited to put forward their proposals for “killer applications” that will change lives for the better. Three of the 10 finalists were mobile health applications.

One was a diabetes monitor. The other conducted a battery of heart measurements. A third continuously provided global positioning service information about fitness and motion.

At the Broadband Breakfast Club, we’re proud to be pushing the envelop with the new ideas that you need to know to be the most expert in what’s coming in internet technology. Our September 2009 event, “Setting the Table for the National Broadband Plan: Health Care” (video here and article here), members of the Broadband Breakfast Club got a sneak peak about the news regarding Text4baby, a new service offering by the government allowing expectant mothers to opt-in to receiving tips and text messages relating to the pregnancy.

And Last year, in March 2012, our event on “Maximizing U.S. Health IT and Broadband Investment” dwelt on the impact of  telemedicine broadband in rural areas.

Tomorrow’s event promises to open a new chapter in the mobile health discussion. Don’t miss the opportunity to attend the Broadband Breakfast Club on Tuesday, April 16!

Follow Broadband Breakfast’s twitter feed at http://twitter.com/broadbandcensus. We track the latest on broadband’s impact,  universal service and wireless spectrum policy. See our upcoming series of Broadband Breakfast Club events. Follow Broadband Breakfast’s Publisher Drew Clark on Google+ and Twitter.