Physical Activity Based on M-Health Tools: Design a New Strategy for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) represents 31% of global deaths; the cost for Europe was estimated at €122.6 billion in 2020, with an increase in €20.5 billion over 6 years. It has been demonstrated that leisure-time physical activity reduces the risk of CVD regardless of age and gender. Nevertheless, the use of physical activity as a “treatment” in health care is still scarce. According to the WHO, this under-usage is due to: (i) difficulty in monitoring patients’ activities; (ii) absence of guidelines; and (iii) lack of competences in sport activity prescription. New technologies have been implemented to promote physical activity. Innovation in this field offers, nowadays, several different tools to boost physical activity to prevent CVD. Being drawn into the emerging relevance of the diffusion of m-health services, this work intends to investigate the role of the public sector in addressing the specific strategies needed to favor the adoption of a m-health system to boost physical activity for CVD prevention. We depicted our investigation starting from the fuzzy zone between the time in which an innovation is available, and the time when a public service can be effectively affected by this innovation. The study examines which factors foster the planning and implementation of a m-health service as a booster of well-being behaviors among patients and practitioners. Particularly, this chapter reports on the initial deducing findings coming from an exploratory pilot study targeted on qualitative interviews with privileged experts in the areas of CVD and Kinesiology. Findings appear to claim for a change in the framework of intervention in the general public policy setting, pushing for a change in vision, approach, institutional framework, and cultural setting. Aspects such as: absence of guidelines, lack of specific physical training as well as the necessity to rethink the governance to access services have been found as challenges to be faced, at policy level, toward the realization of value co-creation schemes in health care.