A review of mobile health applications and its use phases

The use of mobile and wireless devices in healthcare plays a vital role in transforming health service delivery for patients and physicians across the globe. These devices are mainly driven because of rising healthcare costs and demand from the patients for diagnosing, treatment and care. Initiatives from the government and private companies have already started for developing mobile health interventions in the low resource setting areas. Yet, there has been less adequate reviews about mobile health applications across patients' use-phases. This paper provides a comprehensive review of mobile health applications across patients' use-phases. It reviews the most significant research articles and proposes variables that can be used for testing its significance among the people of low- and medium-income countries. It also emphasises the challenges involved in the successful deployment of mobile health applications which help in identifying the current state of research thereby establishing an agenda for future research direction.