Health workers in low-resource environments have little or no access to clinical content, guidelines, protocols, or research. GUIDE allows very large documents (such as Ministry of Health treatment guidelines) to be formatted for easy use on the small screen of a mobile device. Importantly, GUIDE preserves the format of graphic elements such as tables, charts, graphs, and illustrations. Resident on the device, these documents are always available for access even if there is no connection to the web.
As smartphones proliferate around the world, we ought to remain cognizant of what information we share on those phones with applications, application developers, advertisers and marketers. Phones are incredibly personal, always on, and always with most of us. As a result, they can reveal sensitive information. In fact, it is time for smartphone users to put pressure on application developers, platform providers, and eventually legislators to protect private and potentially sensitive information.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently published a paper on locational privacy. Because smartphones know where we are (using GPS, and if not, using applications such as Google’s My Location service), they can reveal a lot of information about activities, patterns of behaviour, and relationships we have.
Our excellent and long-time MobileActive.org friends over at Development Seed have released a new light-weight open source SMS gateway that can run on a laptop or a USB stick.
From Development Seed's Tm McWright: "Using an GSM modem or cellphone, SlingshotSMS will send and receive text messages on behalf of your web application. It builds on the work of pygsm, an excellent Python library for dealing with AT-compatible modems. What this means is that SlingshotSMS is compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux, and can interface with a wide range of GSM modems and cell phones - including many sub-$200 field-ready modems like the one we used for testing when we were field-testing last week as part of our participation in Camp Roberts experiments. All code is available on github.
Here is a breakdown of the SlingshotSMS workflow...
Avaaj Otalo ("voice-based community forum") is a system for farmers to access relevant and timely agricultural information over the phone. The system was designed in the summer of 2008 as a collaboration between IBM India Research Laboratory and Development Support Center (DSC), an NGO in Gujarat, India. By dialing a phone number and navigating through simple audio prompts, farmers can record questions, review and respond to others, or access content published by agricultural experts and institutions. In addition to the Q&A forum, Avaaj Otalo includes an announcements board of headline-like snippets updated regularly by DSC staff, and a radio archive to listen to past episodes of DSC's popular weekly radio program.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a server
Key Features :
IVR system for information access and sharing of experiences amongst small-scale farmers in rural India.
Question Box is an "all-questions-answered" service that attempts to democratize the world’s information for all the world’s people. Unlike many services that target only mobile or web users, Question Box takes into account the fact that some people are illiterate, some people are too poor to afford even a mobile phone, and some people (often times women) are shut out from communicating with certain people or information sources.
The service was started by Rose Shuman a few years ago when she got the idea to offer the internet and information found in things like Wikipedia to people who couldn’t read or who were otherwise disenfranchised. Since then the service has been piloted in many locations in India and is currently being piloted in Uganda.
UNICEF Malawi deployed RapidSMS to address serious constraints within the national Integrated Nutrition and Food Security Surveillance (INFSS) System, which was facing slow data transmission, incomplete and poor quality data sets, high operational costs and low levels of stakeholder ownership.
Health workers now enter a child’s data, and through an innovative feedback loop system, RapidSMS instantly alerts field monitors of their patients’ nutritional status.
Mobile Phone Based Clinical Microscopy for Global Health Applications data sheet 1887 Views
Author:
David N. Breslauer, Robi N. Maamari, Neil A. Switz, Wilbur A. Lam, Daniel A. Fletcher
Publication Date:
Jul 2009
Publication Type:
Journal article
Abstract:
Light microscopy provides a simple, cost-effective, and vital method for the diagnosis and screening of hematologic and infectious diseases. In many regions of the world, however, the required equipment is either unavailable or insufficiently portable, and operators may not possess adequate training to make full use of the images obtained.
Counterintuitively, these same regions are often well served by mobile phone networks, suggesting the possibility of leveraging portable, camera-enabled mobile phones for diagnostic imaging and telemedicine. Toward this end we have built a mobile phone-mounted light microscope and demonstrated its potential for clinical use by imaging P. falciparum-infected and sickle red blood cells in brightfield and M. tuberculosis-infected sputum samples in fluorescence with LED excitation.
In all cases resolution exceeded that necessary to detect blood cell and microorganism morphology, and with the tuberculosis samples we took further advantage of the digitized images to demonstrate automated bacillus counting via image analysis software. We expect such a telemedicine system for global healthcare via mobile phone – offering inexpensive brightfield and fluorescence microscopy integrated with automated image analysis – to provide an important tool for disease diagnosis and screening, particularly in the developing world and rural areas where laboratory facilities are scarce but mobile phone infrastructure is extensive.
MXit is a mobile social networking service hugely popular with young South Africans who flock to it by the millions. Marlon Parker is a social entrepreneur and lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology where he’s doing his PhD who saw his drug-addicted brother go to jail. Put Marlon's personal experience together with the conversations happening on MXit every day, and you have DAS, Drug Advice Support.
In an article in South Africa's Business Times recently, Parker describes DAS:
Drug users can “chat” with the services’ counsellors when they feel the urge to use, says Parker. It is the first step in a rehabilitation programme run with nongovernmental organisation Impact Direct. The service, which is called Drug Advice Support, has since expanded to include advice on careers, rape and child abuse and an advisory service for those infected with HIV/Aids.
Although nonprofits in the United States has been slower to embrace mobile phones for health purposes than the rest of the world, mobiles are catching on as a way to reach diverse populations across the U.S.
“Mobile provides a fantastic channel for communication,” said Erin Edgerton, senior social media strategist at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “It’s always on, always with you and provides personal access to information.”
Nonprofits and government agencies are using this ubiquitous device for health purposes including monitoring, education and instant alerts and communication.
Mobile monitoring
For diabetes patients in Georgia, mobile phones have facilitated an instant connection to help and education.In several different pilot studies, participants used cell phones to document aspects of diabetes treatment ranging from glucose readings to snapping photos of the meals that they ate. Participants then sent the photos, readings, or other questions to a diabetes education center, where a diabetes educator could instantly respond to questions.
Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature data sheet 5109 Views
Author:
Donner, Jonathan
Publication Date:
Dec 2007
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
The paper reviews roughly 200 recent studies of mobile (cellular) phone use in the developing world, and identifies major concentrations of research. It categorizes studies along two dimensions. One dimension distinguishes studies of the determinants of mobile adoption from those that assess the impacts of mobile use, and from those focused on the interrelationships between mobile technologies and users. A secondary dimension identifies a sub-set of studies with a strong economic development perspective. The discussion considers the implications of the resulting review and typology for future research.
Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in Mobile Use by NGOs data sheet 3813 Views
Author:
Kinkade, Sheila; Verclas, Katrin
Publication Date:
Jan 2008
Publication Type:
Magazine or newspaper article
Abstract:
This report explores the ways in which non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) and
other groups deploy and use mobile
technology in their work to help solve some
of the world’s greatest problems. This study
is not meant to be exhaustive or definitive,
but rather to provide a view into how a
number of organizations are using mobile
technology to achieve social impact. The authors
selected case studies that enabled an
exploration of significant innovations,
opportunities, and emerging trends, as well
as the obstacles, in the use of mobile
technology to advance social goals.
RapidResponse is a m-health platform built on RapidSMS developed for the Millennium Villages Project with support from the UNICEF Innovation Group. RapidResponse uses SMS text messages to facilitate and coordinate the activities of health care providers in the field. These are usually lay community health care workers who tend to provide the majority of patient care in many developing countries.
Using simple text messages, the community health workers are able to register patients and send in health reports to a central web dashboard that allows a health team to closely monitor the health of a community. Powerful messaging features help facilitate communication between the members of the health system and an automated alert system helps reduce gaps in treatment.
This video gives an overview of the platform in a clear and accessible step-by-step manner. While Rapid Response in this case is focused on child malnutrition, Rapid Response has applicability in many other health and non-health settings.
Collaboration supported by mobile devices has brought advantages for users and also challenges for software developers and mobile computing devices manufacturers. Every kind of device used to support mobile collaboration has strengths and weaknesses depending on the work context where it is used. The idea is to use a specific device when advantages are most relevant and disadvantages do not affect team work. This paper proposes an evaluation framework that helps developers to identify the type of device that can be used to support mobile collaboration in specific work contexts. In addition, three mobile collaborative applications are analyzed using the evaluation framework. The results of the analysis are then compared with the empirically observed suitability.
mHealth for Development: The Opportunity of Mobile Technology for Healthcare in the Developing World data sheet 6179 Views
Author:
Vital Wave Consulting
Publication Date:
Feb 2009
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Mounting interest in the field of mHealth—the provision of health-related services via mobile communications—can be traced to the evolution of several interrelated trends. In many parts of the world, epidemics and a shortage of healthcare workers continue to present grave challenges for governments and health providers. Yet in these same places, the explosive growth of mobile communications over the past decade offers a new hope for the promotion of quality healthcare. Among those who had previously been left behind by the ‘digital divide,’ billions now have access to reliable technology. There is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the potential of mobile communications to radically improve healthcare services—even in some of the most remote and resource-poor environments.
This report examines issues at the heart of the rapidly evolving intersection of mobile phones and healthcare. It helps the reader to understand mHealth’s scope and implementation across developing regions, the health needs to which mHealth can be applied, and the mHealth applications that promise the greatest impact on heath care initiatives. It also examines building blocks required to make mHealth more widely available through sustainable implementations. Finally, it calls for concerted action to help realize mHealth’s full potential. The report is organized into the following sections:
1. Identifying the potential of mobile phones to improve health in the developing world
2. Defining mHealth within the context of eHealth
3. Meeting health needs through a broad array of mHealth applications
4. Examining the impacts of mHealth projects
5 Assessing mHealth and future health needs in developing countries
6. Identifying the building blocks for sustainable and scalable mHealth programs
7. Understanding the incentives for multiple players: mHealth value chains
Every year almost 10 million children die before reaching
the age of five despite the fact that two-thirds of these
deaths could be prevented by effective low-cost
interventions. To combat this, the World Health
Organization (WHO) and UNICEF developed the
Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI)
treatment algorithms.
In Tanzania, IMCI is the national policy for the treatment
of childhood illness. This paper describes e-IMCI, a system
for administering the IMCI protocol using a PDA. Our
preliminary investigation in rural Tanzania suggests that e-
IMCI is almost as fast as the common practice and
potentially improves care by increasing adherence to the
IMCI protocols. Additionally, we found clinicians could
quickly be trained to use e-IMCI and were very enthusiastic
about using it in the future.
Deploying a Medical Record System in Rural Rwanda data sheet 1805 Views
Author:
Anokwa, Yaw; Allen, Christian; Parikh, Tapan
Publication Date:
Jan 2008
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Efficient electronic medical record (EMR) storage and retrieval
systems for treating the millions of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis
(TB) patients in the developing world is largely an unsolved
problem. One attempt at addressing this need is the Open Medical
Record System (OpenMRS) – a framework that provides a free
and flexible EMR system for resource-constrained environments.
Although OpenMRS is a step in the right direction, implementers
of such systems face a question that is largely unanswered by
previous work. Where in the existing paper-based workflow can
such plastic technology be injected and how does one evaluate the
efficacy of this intervention?
In this paper, the authors describe the role manual processes have played
in a rural hospital in Rwanda and how they determined where to
implement appropriate technology solutions of these challenges through an open source framework that provides a free and flexible electronic medical record system
(EMR) for resource-constrained environments. In this
paper, the authors describe the role manual, paper-based processes have
played in a rural hospital and how they determined where to
implement appropriate technologies.