Good practice for mobiles and health
Mobile information and communication technologies (ICTs) are not just phones. In healthcare, personal digital assistants (PDAs) – small hand-held computing devices – are also used. The Uganda Health Information Network project found two-way benefits of distributing PDAs to health workers. Weekly reporting by health workers of disease data for central epidemiological information systems rose to nearly 100 percent, compared to a 63 percent national average. As well as giving information, health workers also received it – significantly increasing their use of online health research and health education materials.
PDAs are a reminder of the convergence of mobiles and earlier ICTs. But are lessons from earlier ICT projects being learned by mobile health (m-health) initiatives? In Uganda, good practice lessons included the need for user engagement, and for a step-by-step approach.
In other cases, however, good practice lessons have been disregarded. The 'On-Cue' system in South Africa – offering SMS reminders to tuberculosis patients to take their medicine – was weakened by failure to identify a project champion and match system design to local language and skills.
See also
Evaluation of the On Cue Compliance Service Pilot, Bridges.org, Cape Town, South Africa, 2005 (PDF)
www.kiwanja.net/database/document/report_tb_compliance.pdf
Mobile eHealth for Health Workers in Developing Countries, Mobile and Development workshop, Manchester, by Adesina Iluyemi, 2007 (PDF)
www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/research/events/conferences/
documents/mobiles/S_Iluyemi.pdf
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