3 mHealth projects you should know about

Mobile devices are now supporting the practice of medicine and public health in exciting ways. A subset of a larger category known as e-health, which covers all services that involve the electronic transfer of health resources, mHealth has caught the attention of development and business communities alike — a fact reflected in the partnerships that have emerged in the field. But like any fledgling sector, mHealth has been experiencing some growing pains. A 2014 report on the use of mHealth in West Africa, commissioned as part of the Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector initiative, detailed several important gaps. For instance, mHealth systems are typically English-based which has obstructed adoption in the largely French speaking West Africa region. Other financial and operational hurdles not unique to the region include: the absence of sustainable models, a small body of evidence on cost effectiveness, a limited capacity to scale up services, a lack of country ownership, and weak signal coverage. Currently, mHealth is most prominent in Africa and most commonly applied to support maternal health, but it is expanding into other developing countries and health subsectors. According to Devex research, USAID is the most active funder of mHealth projects, although the total amount of aid channeled explicitly to mHealth is difficult to determine because mHealth activities are typically components of larger health projects. Below are a few examples of mHealth initiatives that give a snapshot of donor priorities in the sector. Improving management of acute malnutrition in Africa Through the Community Management of Acute Malnutrition app, an mHealth solution developed by World Vision, a USAID-funded initiative involving Dimagi, Inc. and the Grameen Foundation aims to improve the treatment, reporting, monitoring and supply management for acute malnutrition in Africa. The app uses notifications both to enable parents to schedule follow-up visits for their children and alert health workers to any lapses in these follow-ups. It’s already being piloted through partnerships with the respective local health ministries in Chad (World Vision and International Medical Corps), Mali (World Vision), Niger (World Vision) and Somalia (Save the Children U.K.). The project, which started in January, will run until May 2016. Reducing maternal and infant mortality in East Timor The first mHealth project in East Timor, the Mobile Moms initiative, or Liga Inan (“connecting mothers”) in the local language, aims to help the Ministry of Health in reducing maternal and infant mortality in rural districts. Using a Web-based platform developed by Catalpa International, the organization that is also implementing the project, Mobile Moms enables pregnant women to receive SMS messages about delivering healthy babies and eases the communication between these women and their health care providers. Unlike many mHealth projects that target maternal health, the project is integrated into the MoH-run system. Early evaluations also showed a 30 percent increase in deliveries assisted by a skilled attendant and a 72 percent increase in deliveries in medical facilities. Midwives, meanwhile, reported increased job satisfaction and better communication with their clients. A USAID cooperative agreement worth $1.7 million funded Mobile Moms from October 2011 to September this year. The project is currently being implemented in three of East Timor’s 13 districts, but it will be deployed throughout the country in the next three years through the support of the Australian government. Recently, Catalpa International posted an opening for a project manager role for Mobile Moms. Increasing immunization coverage in Bangladesh Bangladesh’s national immunization program is often hailed as a success story, but a closer look at its rural vaccination record — immunization coverage in rural areas is 44 percent to 60 percent lower than the national average — leaves much to be desired. In remote districts, low immunization coverage can generally be attributed to the absence of effective monitoring systems that can remind parents about immunization schedules. The mTikka system, which was developed through a study by Bangladeshi research organization icddr,b, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dhaka-based social enterprise mPower Health, the University of British Columbia, and the Bangladesh Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, aims to expand immunization coverage through a virtual vaccine registry designed to target the hardest-to-reach segments of the population. It will enable families and health supervisors to view and update every registered child’s record as well as allow parents to download their child’s “virtual mTikka card” simply through SMS. A version of the mTikka system is currently being used alongside existing health systems in Jamalganj, a rural and relatively remote subdistrict, and one urban zone in Dhaka. The project is supported by a grant from Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 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