Enabling Health and Healthcare Through ICT

Book excerpt: For many people in both developing and developed countries universal healthcare is still not the norm. Socio-economic status and geographical restrictions have proved to be major barriers to accessible care. The use of information and communication technologies ICT is growing rapidly internationally as the need to provide more efficient and cost-effective care becomes increasingly urgent. Improving the health of a nation begins with the individual and recent developments in genomics and mobile networked information technologies have regenerated interest in individualizing healthcare. Harnessing the diversity and ubiquity of