Mobile phones can already function as a stethoscope or a microscope; soon they could diagnose sexually transmitted infections as well. The UK Clinical Research Collaboration has spent £4 million ($6.4 million) developing mobile phone test kits for STIs. The kit, which would be sold in vending machines for as little as £1, is a computer chip that can be urinated or spit on and then plugged into a cell phone or computer. A diagnosis pops up in minutes, and depending on the results, you either schedule a doctor’s appointment or get right back to a game of “”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Birds">Angry Birds".

This mobile phone platform approach for STIs is particularly apropos, given a recent headline-grabbing study suggesting that ‘hyper-texting’ teens who send more than 120 messages a day are more likely to have sex and use drugs or alcohol than their less gabby peers. But text messaging can also be beneficial, according to a study of HIV patients in The Lancet. A clinical trial of 538 Kenyans found that receiving a weekly text message increased patients’ adherence to anti-retroviral therapy (ART) by 12%.

A recent article in Science takes issue with the current Balkanization of mobile health into competing, narrowly focused apps and tests. The authors say that for mobile health care to be truly effective it must embrace a more open-source model. Just how to coordinate broad mobile health initiatives among governments, foundations, health care providers and patients is the driving question at the mHealth Summit, currently taking place in Washington, DC. US National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins and Bill Gates are among the keynote speakers. In the video below, Todd Park from the US Department of Health & Human Services talks technology:

However it develops, mobile health is likely to be the best way to deliver health care to the next generation. For young people, socialization and work is already a mobile enterprise. Why should their health care be any different?