Mobile Health, healthcare for everyone, everywhere

Mobile technology is one of the fastest growing telecommunication industry of the world. It is a fact that, even in poor countries, this technology has experienced tremendous growth, as it is estimated that their population owns more than 2.200 million mobiles. However, the access to a better medical service is still limited, since the developing countries still lack medical professionals and beds in the hospitals. This is how the mHealth was born, referring to the “application of mobile communications and network technologies for healthcare“. mHealth allows to make the most of the current mobile technology to improve healthcare worldwide, especially in emerging countries.

As a result of the emergence of the mHealth field, a first alliance was created in order to address the challenges raised by this new vision of Healthcare. Thus, the mHealth Alliance was established with the purpose of supporting further research and development in the area. The founding fathers committed to create a non-profit mHealth coalition to maximize the impact of mobile technologies on health, especially in emerging economies. The Alliance is hosted by the United Nations Foundation, and was founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, Vodafone Foundation, and UN Foundation. As a result of this Alliance many projects have been started, being the so-called “mHealth for development” one of the most important. This project involves the United Nations Foundation together with the Vodafone Foundation and it is intended to “support the use of rapid response mobile telecommunications to aid disaster relief; to develop health data systems that improve access to health data thereby helping to combat disease; and to promote research and innovative initiatives using technology as an agent and tool for international development”. 26 countries have benefited so far from this initiative, including India, Uganda and South Africa, just to mention a few.


Other interesting projects and mobile health applications include: DataDayne (use of PDAs and mobiles to collect data such as nutritional statistics, medical supply change, immunization and vaccination programs in the field), Text2Change as well as Project Masilulekeis (to spread awareness and education about particular communicative diseases amongst large populations by sending SMS) and SIMPill (a pillbox which is fitted with a SIM card so that a healthcare worker is alerted when the pillbox is opened, letting him know that the patient is taking the medicine). 


And what’s there for the future? Check reports and videos  from the 3^rd mHealth Summit which took place in December 2011. The idea was to organise different conferences to explore, examine, and debate the ways mobile technology will transform health care delivery, research, business and policy for the 21st Century. More information and highlights:

http://www.mhealthsummit.org/index.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VpsCqq8ozs

Sources:

http://www.mhealthalliance.org

http://www.globalproblems-globalsolutions-files.org/unf_website/assets/publications/technology/mhealth/mHealth_for_Development_full.pdf

http://mobihealthnews.com/520/interview-un-vodafone-and-the-mhealth-alliance/