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1. Running Head: RISK MANAGEMENT IN MOBILE HEALTH CARE INSTITUTIONS 1
Risk Management in Mobile Health Care Institutions: The Scranton Medicare’s Case Study
Name
Name of Institution
March 9, 2016

2. RISK MANAGEMENT IN MOBILE HEALTH CARE INSTITUTIONS 2
Risk Management in Mobile Health Care Institutions: The Scranton Medicare’s Case Study
Introduction
More than in any other discipline, risk management emerges as a very crucial element in health
care. This is affirmed by the fact that while other industries will work hard to implement risk
management strategies that mitigate and prevent financial losses, the risk management strategies
in healthcare are meant to protect patients’ health and safety. Moreover, because healthcare
parameters have evolved to a stage where mobile healthcare have become a daily aspect of
provisioning healthcare services have to necessitate more elaborate and extensive risk
management strategies (Modi & Mohanty, 2015). For efficient delivery of mobile health
services, the correct merging of the mobile devices and the existing Information Technology
systems is required such that sensitive patients’ data can safely be dispatched from one mobile
device to another. Such implementations call for efficient and timely risk response and
management strategies (Dillardm, 2015).
M-Health in Scranton Medicare
Working in a health or clinical environment requires unconstrained mobility. This is especially
evident for nurses and health providers who are always on the move to provide patients’ care at
different locations. Since the clinical information systems were first introduced in health centers,
this mobility has been considered disadvantaged by the interactions with computers. However,
popularity in use and application of mobile personal assistants such as smartphones has made it
easier to gain access to clinical data at all time and places.
M-Health, mHealth or Mobile Health can be defined as a public and medical health practice
supported by the use of mobile devices such as patient monitoring devices, mobile phones,

3. RISK MANAGEMENT IN MOBILE HEALTH CARE INSTITUTIONS 3
personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablets, and other wireless devices (Healthit.gov, 2015).
According to Ventola (2014), M-Health is a revolutionary strategy that is drastically changing
the outlook towards healthcare internationally. With mobile healthcare, it is possible for health
providers to access the latest medical offerings as well as the patients’ clinical data at any place
and time. Further, mHealth allows patients with chronic conditions to stay constantly in touch
with their doctors without necessarily having to be physically available at the hospital (Modi &
Mohanty, 2015).
Key Steps to Identifying and Managing Risks at Scranton Medicare
Offering mobile healthcare solutions require that the health providers understand the users’
mobile device and their mobility habits as well as how they change. This implies that all user
needs and goals, as well as the behavior of the selected apps that would ultimately drive the
expected outcomes, must first be studied sufficiently (Ventola, 2014). Also, understanding these
behaviors make it possible for Scranton to structure its education and training programs as well
as the use policies for the service (Dillardm, 2015).
Scranton Medicare needs to question and compare what the business needs versus what the entire
stakeholder community expects and also what habits and devices the customers have versus the
expected market competition and volatility. This study performed extensively allows Scranton to
confirm and establish their mobile app strategies such that all risks are adequately addressed, and
the business goals are achieved (Modi & Mohanty, 2015).
Risks in Scranton’s M-Health
Even though offering M-Health at Scranton comes as a solution to the health provisioning
industry, the solution is accompanied by a set of risks and challenges (Healthit.gov, 2015).

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Typical risks that are likely to face Scranton Medicare while in a bid to offer M-Health solutions
can be ranked a follows; data confidentiality, market volatility, and integration with the existing
Information Technology (IT) systems. Each of these named risks has a different capacity to
affect the various stakeholders in the healthcare setup including the patients, nurses and doctors,
and the institution itself (Burton, Wu, & Prybutok, 2010).
For instance, as long as the compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act is an essential requirement for Scranton, security and safeguarding of patients’ personal data
remains a critical concern for the institution. Lack of aggressive data protection strategies in
Scranton Medicare can have adverse effects on both the institution and the patients as the
stakeholders. This is affirmed by the fact that brand damage occurs when the mobile apps used in
M-Health are poorly executed or developed. If the apps are “bugged” or fail to execute, the users
become frustrated and quickly lose interest in the app. According to (Modi & Mohanty, 2015),
over 75% of the M-Health users look up for personal information, whereas less that 30% of the
M-Health institutions have mobile devices use policies (Modi & Mohanty, 2015). This implies
that if at all Scranton Medicare is to lie on the safer side; it has to have definitive rules,
regulations, and policies for its mobile health users to make sure that the Protected Health
Information (PHI) data is handled correctly.
Another risk that is most likely to affect Scranton’s organizational success is market volatility.
M-Health devices and market conditions evolve rapidly. Also, the demand for M-Health can be
fickle based on consumer habits and the latest social trends. Therefore, since all these factors
concurrent to market volatility are in the patients’ or the payers’ margin, it is important for
Scranton to keep on and stay current where the mobile health apps are updated and often
refreshed (Dillardm, 2015).

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There is also a typical risk accompanied with the integration of M-Health parameters to the
existing IT systems within Scranton Medicare. If the mobile devices are going to work in real-
time, then it is important to integrate them into the existing health IT standards and systems.
Failure to address this risk appropriately is likely to result in delayed services delivery for
Scranton since patients’ data is not circulated to all the concerned stakeholders and health
providers a required. The exact result of such an occurrence is demeaned brand quality and
damage for Scranton Medicare (Dillardm, 2015).
Education, Training, and Policies for Risk Mitigation
There exist a large set of mitigation strategies which Scranton Medicare can adopt to ensure the
risks mentioned above do not reach their execution stage. Foremost and even before M-Health is
integrated with the existing IT systems, all the latest M-Health technologies, including their
challenges and opportunities, need to be adequately researched and studied. This way, it is
possible to identify all loopholes likely to penetrate the service during its integration and hence
the risk is neutralized (Modi & Mohanty, 2015).
Education and training, also, is an essential risk mitigation strategy. The M-Health users may
become frustrated and even lose interest in using the mobile health apps not because apps are
“bugged” or fail to execute, but because they do not know how to manipulate and use them
(Burton, Wu, & Prybutok, 2010). Therefore, training programs for community health workers,
nurses, and doctors on how to access and use the latest solutions in healthcare treatments emerge
as a crucial undertaking. Scranton could load some mobile devices with healthcare Apps and
once used by doctors and nurses; the mobile devices can be sent out to the surrounding
communities with trained community health workers that they also could teach and train each
other users (Dillardm, 2015).

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Conclusion
Risk management is a very crucial operations strategy for all healthcare institutions. Healthcare
providers such a Scranton need to realize that however much its Mobile Health service appears
as a solution to the surrounding communities, it is accompanied by multiple threats and risks.
The above analysis provides some typical and actual risks that are likely to become Scranton’s
M-Health service. According to the analysis, all the business stakeholders including the doctors
and nurses, the patients, and the institution itself are likely to be affected diversely if any of the
risks are to be executed. As such, the paper proposes some key steps along which Scranton can
follow to identify and adequately manage these risks. Education, training, and policies for risk
mitigation at Scranton Medicare are also discussed. Most of these risk mitigation strategies insist
on establishing a correlative study to understand both the stakeholder preferences and the current
M-Health Technologies such that all possible risks are identified and neutralized at the
preliminary stages of implementing the service.

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Reference List
Burton, P., Wu, Y., & Prybutok, V. (2010). Social network position and its relationship to the
performance of IT professionals. IEEE Computer Society, 7, 121-137.
Dillardm, J. (2015). The data analysis process: 5 steps towards better decision making. The big
sky associates, 2(1), 1-18.
Healthit.gov. (2015). Protected Health Information - Health IT makes it possible. . Retrieved
March 9, 2016, from Patients & Families | HealthIT.gov.:
http://www.healthit.gov/patients-families/what-you-can-do-protect-your-health-
information
Modi, K., & Mohanty, R. B. (2015). M-Health: Challenges, benefits, and key issues to successful
implementation. New York: White Paper. Infosys Limited.
Ventola, C. (2014). Mobile Devices and Apps for Health Care Professionals: Uses and Benefits.
Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 39(5), 356.