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Information and communication technology (ICT) has the ability to offer great potential for improving the quality of services provided along with the efficiency and effectiveness in health care sectors. According to Sayyahgilani et al. (2014), it can also reduce the organizational expenses by reducing processing time and human resource. Internet - which is the fastest growing aspect of ICT in history, actually serves as a tool with a huge potential for health care organizations to deliver quality and cost-effective care to geographically dispersed populations (Jung, 2008).
Today, m-Health is a new paradigm for healthcare systems, covering both processing and telecommunication technologies. The Global Observatory for e-Health (GOe) of the World Health Organization (WHO) defined m-Health as the medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other wireless devices. The m-Health application generally provides patient monitoring, sends text messages reminding patients to take needed medications and offers suggestions for maintaining health while pregnant, even in war-ravaged places (Nisha et al., 2015). The main advantages of using mobile phones for health care services are that these devices are personal, intelligent, connected, and always with people. Therefore, m-Health can serve patients both in everyday life and during hospitalization, as well as health care providers during emergency and even in routine visits.
As an emerging market, Bangladesh is experiencing significant advances and development in health care sectors in recent years. The government has developed a Health Management Information System (MIS) department under the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). The purpose of this department is to ensure the best use of ICT to build and maintain nationwide health information system of Bangladesh (DGHS, 2014). This works as the backbone of the e-Health service network of Bangladesh and m-Health service is rendered using the national wide mobile phone network. The health professionals provide basic health advices and initial diagnosis when the service recipients’ contacts through specialized 24/7 call centers. It has established free tele-consultation with government doctors, SMS services for patient management and communication with staff, etc. These cell phone numbers are circulated among the surrounding community. As such, people residing in the rural areas can be in contact with the health professionals through this network. Moreover, web-camera has been given in each sub-district, district, medical college and post-graduate institute hospitals in Bangladesh. These hospitals, therefore, can give telemedicine services using Skype (free voice over internet provider service and instant messaging client) or any other video conferencing platform. Many mobile phone companies are also providing medical advice and prescriptions to millions of callers in their networks at nominal fees, alleviating some of the access and timeliness related challenges in the provision of healthcare services in Bangladesh (Rashidee, 2013).
However, m-Health service does not yet have a wide coverage in Bangladesh. Across the entire country, m-Health services are being extensively provided in only rural areas, which show that the capital city of Dhaka remains deprived of the availability of such services till today. As such, this paper is focusing on the acceptance, use, future prospect and necessity of m-Health services among the dwellers of Dhaka city in Bangladesh.