Three major actions in mobile internet activities has been revealed based on observation and quantitative data from the phone logging study Most trending user activities are information seeking, communication and content object handling: Information seeking consists of all activities related by using the Internet to gain knowledge or entertainment, with or without clear direction towards the objective. Yanqing in [4] define Information in its broad sense as it can be considered as knowledge or entertainment. It can be divided into subcategories which are fact finding, casual browsing and information gathering where fact finding is the most common task in seeking information followed by casual browsing and information gathering. Communication remains the main function serve by mobile phone. However, Yanqing, only focuses on communication that relies on internet to suit with the context. There are several ways to communicate over the internet. For example, voice services such as Skype and Fring while textual based communication can be a web mail, online communities, push mail or instant messaging. Content object handling can be considered as activities where participants used the internet to manipulate digital content. It can be either capturing a public data such as ring tones, wall papers and add-on applications or sharing it by transferring to others or simply publish it to the public. A study conducted by Tomi in [5] on the impact on information needs and practices for users with constant mobile internet connection, identified five categories for information needs. 33% of the information needs (on-the-move and public transportation) occurs in a context when participant was moving while the remaining 67 % of the information needs took place when participants were in a situation that was relatively static in terms of movement. More interesting, a large quantity of information needs occurred in the home environment (35 %) even with the existence of desktop computer. Most probably its due to proximity and convenience which the mobile is instantly available for fulfilling the information need. It is also supported by Nylander, et al in [6], whereby 51% occurrence of internet access by using mobile phone took place in location where participants had access to computer. Mobile phone is not simply a backup when no computer is available but more as a tool that helps to provide quicker and more convenient service. Therefore, it can be said that mobile devices have become powerful and usable enough to supplant the desktop computer in some situations, even when the computer is available.
Previously, healthcare was focused on diagnosis- based treatment only where patient will approach medical professionals when they are not feeling well. If the healthcare monitoring process shift from clinical-centric to patient centric, it would be great to minimize the resources at hospitals. A comprehensive ubiquitous healthcare solution has been proposed which includes a real time Electrocardiography (ECG) monitoring and analyzing system based on an Android mobile device [7]. Wireless sensor network technology is used to transmit data hence promoting the flexible
monitoring mechanism by replacing complicated wired technology and moving healthcare away from a fixed location setting by utilizing a mobile phone. It also reduces the hassles, queues and crowds in hospital as well as providing more healthcares services and focus to patients who are seriously and urgently in need of such services. An integrated framework has been proposed in [8] to improve diabetes therapy management. Self-monitoring blood glucose (SMBG) measurements are conventionally analyzed by the physician based on the patient's logbook. Sometimes it is hard to perform assessment and decision making due to the data availability. Besides, there are many factors that affect a patient's blood glucose levels and cause unpredictable and potentially dangerous blood glucose level such as illness, physical activity, treatments, physical and psychological stress, drugs and change in the meal plan. The proposed solution consists of patient's personal diabetes management device, Radio-frequency Identification (RFID)- based management application and web portal with glycemic index database which is integrated with each other over the internet. The architecture offers a set of services for monitoring, interconnecting with the glycemic index database and ubiquitous access to the information based on the personal device, web portal and management desktop application. Main contribution of the framework in supporting blood glucose management and insulin therapy is that most of the measurements and interactions with the patient are done at home. It improves the self-monitoring blood glucose process while keep the interaction between nurses and physicians being updated regularly.
A study has also been conducted to evaluate diabetes management, control and complication profile in patients with diabetes in Malaysia. A total of 1670 patients from general hospitals, diabetes clinic and referral clinics participated in the study to study the scenario of diabetes management. 92.8% or 1549 patients were reported as type 2 diabetic population and it shows that majority of them were not satisfactorily controlled. Therefore, effective measures is needed to increase awareness on the practice guidelines and to educate both patients and healthcare personnel on importance of achieving clinical targets for metabolic control [9]. In order to provide seamless access to health care services anytime and anywhere. Davy in [10] has proposed an approach to utilize mobile phone as a tool for individuals diagnosed with diabetes. The prototype application will help to make decisions on daily insulin dosage to maintain patient's blood glucose
levels by recognizing past behavior based on user location and activity. However the proposed system still relies on user input as the mobile phone does not equipped with additional sensors. Food intake and insulin dosage input will be synchronized with the blood glucose meter to obtain the blood glucose levels. From the previous researches, it can be conclude that a better mechanism on logging the blood glucose reading could improve the assessment and decision making on diabetic patient. By utilizing a mobile phone, a flexible monitoring mechanism can be implemented to replace conventional wired technology but without losing its main function as a phone.