Design methodologies for M-health innovations: a content analysis

Whilst researchers and professionals recognize that M-health offers great opportunities, most existing work has comprised individual project-based developments in specialised areas. Existing review papers generally utilise medical literature and categories: none investigates M-health from an IS design point of view. Identifying application areas, design issues and IS research techniques will demonstrate models, issues, approaches and gaps to inform future research. A comprehensive analysis of up to date literature from this viewpoint is valuable, both for theoretical progression and for guiding real-world innovative developments. Drawing from key IS and multidisciplinary journals we analyse recent (2010-2016) articles concerning M-health application developments and their associated design or development issues. We identify eight application categories, ten design issues (security, privacy, literacy, accessibility, acceptability, reliability, usability, confidentiality, integrity and knowledge sharing) and the stakeholders and development techniques involved. The analysis suggests M-health is an emerging field to which design science is particularly appropriate.