mHealth Summit 2012 in DC explores that many ways mobile technologies are fundamentally changing the way health care is experienced.

In 2010, Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach initiative helped launch the Mobile Health Information System (MHIS) project to improve the ability of health care workers to care for their patients.

Qualcomm is taking another leap forward in advancing our wireless health efforts by launching our first wireless health patient program right here at Qualcomm’s San Diego on-campus Health Center.

Before the introduction of Qualcomm’s 2net™ Platform, medical devices were siloed and biometric data was locked within proprietary systems and uniquely configured devices. The launch of Qualcomm Life’s cloud-based service liberated this data, creating new possibilities for end-to-end device connectivity.

Each year, an astonishing 7.6 million children around the world die before their fifth birthday. The heartbreaking fact is that a large majority of these deaths are preventable. For the first time in history, the technology and the knowledge now exist to address this terrible problem by bringing life-saving interventions, even to those that live in the hardest-to-reach areas.

Today, health care apps and medical devices are coming to the market and big players are jumping into the field faster than our professions’ and industries’ DNA can adapt. I observe this in action every day in my role as a physician, employee health advocate, and technology proponent.

Executives from the leading consumer electronics, healthcare, technology and communications companies are convening today at the 7th Annual Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance Convergence Summit here in San Diego.

In the most populated country in the world, China, more than half a billion people live outside of urban areas and many do not have access to the same quality of health care as those who live within the cities. This is one reason why Qualcomm, through its Wireless Reach initiative, has collaborated with China Children and Teenagers’ Fund (CCTF) and Xi’an Kingtone Information Technology Co., Ltd., (Xi’an Kingtone) to implement the Mobile Vision Project – a mobile health project that utilizes a customized 3G-enabled mobile application to assist doctors in the screening and treatment of children with amblyopia in underserved communities in China.

One of the themes that resonated throughout Mobile World Congress 2012 (MWC) was the power of mobile in creating new opportunities and overcoming barriers in an array of vertical markets, from health care to women and entrepreneurship. Our Wireless Reach initiative supports pilot projects with this in mind and we continue to believe that wireless technology can improve people’s lives.