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July 20, 2007
Uncle Sam and Mobile Phone Industry Players Team Up for Health in the Developing World
A potentially amazing public-private partnership is being forged between the US Government and several mobile phone industry playes that may set the standard for utilizing mobile devices for in-the-field health data collection in the developing world.
According to a summary of the initiative available on: http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2007/experiences-4208.html
"The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Emergency Plan/PEPFAR) is working along with the several mobile phone industry companies and other private-sector partners to leverage technology to connect health systems in PEPFAR-supported countries. The programme provides health workers in the field with a Motorola-made phone that is equipped with an application that lets them enter health data on patients. That information is then sent by way of general packet radio services (GPRS) to a central database. (If a GPRS network is not available, it can be sent via SMS.) The data is analysed and mapped by the system and then made available to health officials through a real-time internet database. PEPFAR will provide initial support for system roll-out in Rwanda and Nigeria in 2007, with a plan to eventually extend the partnership to at least 8 additional countries on this continent and then expand into Asia as well. While initially focused on HIV/AIDS, the goal is to use the system to address infectious diseases like tuberculosis and malaria."
A graphic of how PEPFAR works is available on:
Download file
This is a partnership to watch for the procedures that come into place may well create a replicable model that could be rolled out in much of the developing world for a number of different applications.
A similar initiative led by a technologist husband and epidemiologist wife and incubated at Stanford University is in alpha testing in India. For a description, see: http://rdvp.org/fellows/2006-2007/shashank-garg/
Surely many other initiatives that utilize mobiles for health data collection in the developing world. I would like to showcase other initiatives and as such kindly request readers of this blog to share with me any examples they care to share.
Posted by Adam at July 20, 2007 10:27 AM