Here lies mHealthNews, the latest failed effort to capitalize on the questionable field of mobile healthcare. Alas, we hardly knew thee.
Friday, HIMSS Media, the publishing arm of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, put the oft-overlooked e-newsletter out of its misery, officially announcing the demise of mHealthNews after less than two and a half years of publication. Without the announcement, few might have noticed.
Gus Venditto, HIMSS Media vice president for content, had the unenviable task of passing on the news:
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
When we launched mHealthNews in July 2013, FitBit Flex was just a few weeks old and rumors were swirling that Apple might follow with its own wearable.
Two and a half years later, mobile health has far surpassed the simple heart rate monitor stage. Today’s news involves startups working on precision medicine and large pharmaceutical companies using apps to track cancer treatments.
That’s half right. Yes, mobile health is well beyond health monitors, but it was long before mHealthNews started in July 2013. Also, startups working on precision medicine are far more likely to say they are working in “digital health” than “mobile health.”
(We’ll let Paul Sonnier and Matthew Holt argue over whether “digital health” is a better term than the trademarked “Health 2.0.” But if I never have to see “mHealth” again, with the arbitrarily ugly and unnecessary capital H, it will be too soon.)
The demise of mHealthNews (grr, I used that capital H again) became inevitable when HIMSS Media bought the far-more-successful MobiHealthNews in September. Venditto acknowledged as such in his announcement.
Faced with the choice of maintaining two sources of news in the field, we’ve decided to focus our resources on building MobiHealthNews and we will cease publishing mHealthNews.
Starting December 15, mHealthNews subscribers will be offered the MobiHealthNews daily newsletter. The change won’t affect many – most mHealth News subscribers are already signed up for the MobiHealthNews daily.
For what it’s worth, MobiHealthNews has seemed to prefer “digital health” to “mobile health” for at least the last three years.
So, add mHealthNews to the graveyard that already includes the mHealth Alliance, mHealth Initiative, Mobile Health Association and a HIMSS-run effort called mHIMSS. Rest in peace. mHealthNews is survived by another HIMSS property, the mHealth Summit.
Note: Neil Versel freelanced for both MobiHealthNews and HIMSS Media-owned Healthcare IT News before joining MedCity News.
Photo: Flickr user Andrew Dyson
