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August 09, 2007
iplato Public Health Information via SMS
After successfully launching an innovative population-wide SMS based mobile healthcare services information system to cover 165,000 patients in the Hammersmith & Fulham district of London, iPlato has gone national in the UK!
In the words of Medical News Today, a respected UK medical blog, "Mobile healthcare specialist iPLATO has developed a new text messaging service which provides Britons travelling abroad with free travel health information regarding malaria. The service, funded by GlaxoSmithKline Travel Health as part of the Malaria Awareness Campaign, allows travellers to text in the name of their destination country to receive relevant information about the malaria prevalence in that country.
Despite the fact that malaria is a preventable disease every year approximately 2,000 British travelers return home with malaria, making the UK one of the biggest importers of malaria among industrialised countries. Travelers using the service are charged their standard operator rates and the service is available over all networks.
Malaria is a risk for British travelers as people increasingly visit countries where malaria is common; there has been a 150% increase in travel to malarious destinations amongst British travelers in the last 10 years"
The question now is to how to entice travelers to seek Malaria information before getting on the plane. Perhaps a bit of creative thinking along the lines of persuasion may be in order!
iPLATO is truly innovative, and through their iPLATO Patient Care Messaging service they cover 165,000 patients will be able to interact with their doctors on diverse health related subjects such as appointments, periodic reviews, smoking status, immunization and invitations to specialist clinics directly via mobile text messaging.
For more information in iPLATO and their work, see: http://www.iplato.net/
ps- A final question: When are we going to see such applications in the United States?
Posted by Adam at August 9, 2007 11:48 AM