In 2005, a group of developers at SynapseHealth designed a mobile phone platform that linked doctors with health workers in remote areas. SynapseHealth, a Philippine technology company focused on the healthcare industry, developed and implemented the M-DOK program with a grant from IDRC?s Panasia ICT R&D program. Although the pilot is now over, it was so influential that it was ranked as one of the top 20 most innovative health programs in the Philippines.
SMS technology has great potential in countries like the Philippines, where nearly every citizen has a mobile subscription but only 9 in 100 are internet users. Mobile network coverage now reaches 99 percent of the population.
M-DOK addressed a situation common to many developing countries: With many doctors located in dense metropolitan areas, and much of the population scattered in remote, inaccessible areas, many people in the Philippines have poor access to tertiary level care. In 2000, there were .58 doctors per 1000 people; in 2004 there were 1.15 physicians per 1000 people (this is a big improvement, but most OECD countries have 3-4 doctors per 1000 people).
How eHealth developers can use CHMI from CHMInnovations on Vimeo.
In Manila, I asked Ayedee Domingo, the managing director of SynapseHealth, about what information about existing models developers need to develop effective solutions.
Was this pilot supposed to ever go to scale?
Ayedee: The goal of this project was more software development than anything. We wanted to see if this tool could be used by people in rural areas and if it would help rural doctors validate diagnosis and treatment by conferring with specialists.
How did you design your technology platform? What models did you look at?
There weren?t many eHealth projects going on when we started, at least in the Philippines. The well-known examples, like Sana Mobile, Click Diagnostics, and Frontline SMS, were started after we ran the M-DOK pilot.
We focused on the needs of the community and the technical limitations of people who would use this technology. SMS and mobile phone promos were already popular so the learning curve was not actually that steep. At the time there wasn?t a single repository with what works in different countries or localities. We had to piece together information by ourselves.
We did a literature search on MEDLINE and an internet search. There were only a few eHealth applications in the Philippines, and most telehealth projects were internet-based, which we thought might be not a viable options since internet connectivity in the Philippines is patchy at best?as opposed to GSM coverage which covers the vast majority of the country.
In this 1:43 minute video clip, Ayedee talks about what types of online resources would benefit developers of mHealth platforms. He is looking for ways to interact with other developers through social networking tools, but also evaluations of how well an implemented project worked in the field.
What did you do after M-DOK with the technology?did you take it further?
M-DOK helped us evaluate the effectiveness and robustness of the technology for rural settings. We incorporated the technology and lessons in subsequent projects, such as TexTB and SPEED. TexTB is a USAID-funded project that allows rural health workers to order TB drugs using SMS. This prevents wastage and expiry of TB drugs at the rural level. The TexTB project was done in conjunction with Philippine Business for Social Progress and TB LINC. TexTB has been pilot tested in 151 rural health units in five provinces.
We also used the technology to design the Surveillance in Post Extreme Emergencies and Disasters (SPEED) which allows monitoring of 21 critical conditions that arise after a disaster. SPEED was developed based on recommendations from the Global Outbreak Alert Network that studied the effects of Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) in 2009. The typhoon devastated the Philippine capital of Manila and resulted in one of the largest leptospirosis outbreaks in the Philippines. SPEED was developed to prevent such outbreaks from happening in the future. SPEED is a project of the Health Emergency Management Staff of the Department of Health and World Health Organization Philippines. SPEED is currently being implemented nationwide and has already been used in a number of recent disasters, such as Typhoon Juaning (Nock-Ten) in 2011.
What mHealth projects are you working on now?
We are doing several mHealth applications for the Nokia, iPhone, and Android platforms. We are also doing other health information systems, such as a nationwide rheumatoid arthritis disease registry and a patient social network.
Thanks for your time, Ayedee! We are creating an online repository for innovative health programs that includes measured results and evaluations. Check out our Reported Results initiative to learn more about how we are tracking success.
This post originally appeared on the Center for Health Market Innovations blog.
Related posts:
- Global learning at the speed of a text message
- Harnessing Off-Grid Power From Mobile Networks
- Going Mobile: Technology and Policy Issues in the Mobile Internet
- Mobile 2.0: M-money for the BoP in the Philippines
- 8000 Observers Report on Nigerian Elections via Text Message
Posted by Center for Health Market Innovations on Sep 27 2011. Filed under Featured Content, mHealth, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry 
Source: http://www.globalhealthhub.org/2011/09/27/harnessing-the-power-of-a-text-message/
webmd health information wellness dog food wellness center health and wellness
No comments:
Post a Comment