A record-breaking 4,050 participants from 56 countries, as well as every U.S. state attended the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s 4th annual mHealth Summit in December just outside of Washington, D.C.

The summit had 300 exhibiting companies, themed pavilions and 90 high-level panel sessions all focused on advancing mobile health and discussing the challenges surrounding wireless integration into the greater healthcare system for the delivery of quality, affordable healthcare in the U.S. and around the world, according to event organizers.

Held Dec. 3-5 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, the theme for the 4th annual summit was “Connecting the Mobile Health Ecosystem.”

Participants included those from research, government, advocacy, NGOs, providers, payers, technology innovators, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and others.

Keynote speakers included Mark Bertolini, CEO and president of Aetna; Gary Shapiro, CEO and president of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA); Peter Tippett, chief medical officer and vice president Verizon Enterprise Solutions; Harry Totonis, CEO of Surescripts; Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and UN Foundation board member Dr. Nafis Sadik.

The summit also offered a series of executive spotlights from AT&T, Deloitte, Intel, Philips Healthcare, American Liver Foundation and McCann Health, as well as the director general of Ghana Health Services.

“This gathering of stakeholders from around the world, who represent each aspect of the mobile health ecosystem is unprecedented,” said Richard Scarfo, director of the mHealth Summit and vice president of Events at HIMSS Media.

He added, “As we close the 2012 mHealth Summit, we are confident that the conversations around challenges, such as scalability, interoperability, security, privacy and data analytics will help drive momentum for finding solutions on how to deliver 21st century mobile healthcare globally.”

Patricia Mechael, executive director of the mHealth Alliance, a founding partner of the mHealth Summit, said, “Quality health services and public health is a global imperative and it’s efficient, effective, and safe delivery through mobile technologies is going to take a united effort. The global health track and partnerships forged and networking facilitated at the summit were some of the important ways we are continuously learning, fostering innovation, sharing information and moving the field forward.”

Here were some of the key themes from the summit:

Common global interests. The domestic and international communities are looking to mHealth to provide solutions for scalability to increase access and quality of healthcare delivery while reducing costs;

mobile connectivity is driving personalization and consumerization of health, enabling greater patient empowerment and bridging the gap for improved provider and patient communications, interventions and consumer engagement;

a global health spotlight on maternal, women’s and child health; and

policy barriers to overcome to advance the integration of mHealth for better health.