Bad Services? Holding Officials Accountable with SMS, Radio, and TRAC FM data sheet 2345 Views
A recent radio poll at Sanyu FM in Kampala, Uganda, asked listeners what area of service delivery should be a priority: healthcare, education, security, sanitation, or transport. Using a new tool, TRAC FM, the station was able to solicit comments via SMS from listeners, discuss the issue on the air, and create and post online visualizations of the responses. The station received 103 SMS responses which showed that healthcare was the major concern for listeners, which accounted for 65% of responses.
With help from Text to Change and in partnership with local media organizations, TRAC FM provides citizens in Uganda with a platform to monitor, scrutinize, and discuss public service issues via SMS, radio, and online data visualizations. It does this via the TRAC FM software, a tool for Ugandan radio stations that is partially built on RapidSMS, an open source platform originally developed by UNICEF.
TRAC works in countries affected by poverty and conflict. Its sole purpose is to improve the welfare of people by enabling them to make informed choices and to hold their leaders accountable. TRAC gathers data to enhance transparency and informs people by unleashing the power of mobile communications.
There are a myriad of mobile data collection tools, and varied documentation describing what they do, what they require, and how they work. Given these choices, choosing a particular system can be a daunting task.
We recognize this challenge and have developed a DRAFT matrix assessing ten different mobile data collection technologies against a core set of metrics. It does not seek to emphasis one over the other, rather is meant to aid you in determining which is best for your project. Please take a look at this draft and annotate and edit, as appropriate. Given the quick changes in this area, this is a work in progress.
Thank you to my colleague at MobileActive.org, Mohini Bhavsar, whoe helped compile the data, and the many people who made themselves available to vet the data in the spreadsheet.
As part of a "Mobile Telemedicine" initiative undertaken by the Millennium Villages Project in Ghana, I have been researching and documenting existing software platforms that enable and support remote consultation activities.
Telemedicine is the use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic communications to improve patients’ health status or for educational purposes. It includes consultative, diagnostic, and treatment services.
Mobile health information technology (mHealth) typically refers to portable devices with the capability to create, store, retrieve, and transmit data in real time between end users for the purpose of improving patient safety and quality of care.
