"This mHealth is a little confusing to me, but we will get a title for this soon, and it will be the right one," said Leonid Androuchko, professor of telecommunications at the International University of Geneva and a coordinator for telehealth with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) during his remarks at the Med-e-Tel event in Luxembourg last week.

Androuchko decried the state of the mHealth industry as a "creative mess" that lacked coordination, according to a report in Healthcare IT News. "We have seen several projects in the same country, covering the same ground, that are not communicating with each other. We could be missing some real benefits."

Med-e-Tel's speakers also predicted that so-called developing markets will adopt mHealth technology first while countries in the West wait on policy makers and standards groups to set the ground rules first. Dr. K. Ganapathy, president of the Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation in India pointed out that a simple $5 webcam connected to a 3G network can improve early detection of oral cancer and save thousands of lives each year.

"I'm frustrated," Ganapathy said. "I can order pizza on my mobile phone but I can't manage my health?"

Read Healthcare IT News' full coverage of the Med-e-Tel mHealth session from last week.