Over the weekend, the American Telemedicine Association 2010 event here in San Antonio kicked off with a number of speakers focused on telemedicine going global -- and how the mobile phone is driving that trend, according to a report over at HIT News.

“We’re just beginning to see the internationalization of healthcare,” ATA CEO Jonathan Linkous noted.

The mobile phone is driving that internationalization, according to the mHealth Alliance's executive director David Aylward, who pointed out that the more than 4 billion cellphones in use today are becoming health management tools.

“What we’re looking for now is meaningful use of these devices,” Aylward said. “Having a really cool wireless ultrasound is not going to take off on its own,” he said. Whole solutions are needed, suites of services that work together to form a full "mobile clinic," Aylward said.

UnitedHealth Group's telehealth VP, Pramod Gaur, also has high hopes for mobile health globally. Gaur encouraged ATA attendees to consider public-private partnerships and to leverage the mobile phone as a means to improve access to care.

More from Healthcare IT News here