The Department of Health states that opportunities for mobile technology in healthcare are growing, and has called on the cellphone industry to help save lives and offer health services to South Africans.
The department said in a statement that “mobile technology creates effective solutions to address healthcare challenges”. The call from the department follows a positive report from a UN study looking at the successful implementation of mobile technology healthcare programmes.
The study titled, “Health for Development: The Opportunity of Mobile Technology for Healthcare in the Developing World", detailed 51 programmes in 26 countries. The study revealed that the biggest adopters of mobile technology are India with 11 projects, and SA and Uganda with six projects each.
Local projects centre on the idea of the cellphone serving as a "doctor in your pocket" - an idea which the study reveals has gained traction over the past few years. Local projects used cellphones to remind people to get vaccinations, take medicine or undergo HIV tests. Doctors and nurses working at distance, from hospitals or clinics, use cellphones to relay information on remote patients or report disease outbreaks.
Increase innovation
According to the department, "innovative technology could reduce the pressure on public healthcare systems” and researchers should continue searching for ways to harness cellphone technology.
"Public healthcare is overwhelmed. People wait for hours just to see the doctor. You can replace the doctor in the majority of cases, as cellphones outnumber fixed lines locally," states the department.
There are still limitations though, the department concedes. "One of the main challenges in mobile health is that people who are most in need of healthcare are usually more aged, so they don't use the mobile or they're not comfortable with it. We need to extend the reach of our programmes.”
Learn by example
According to the health department, SA needs to look to other countries to find more innovative ways of using mobile health solutions.
In Uganda, a multiple-choice quiz on HIV and Aids was sent to 15 000 subscribers on the Celtel network in a rural region, inviting them to answer questions and seek tests. Users who completed the quiz were given free airtime. Each time they answered a question wrong, they received a message informing them of the correct response.
At the end of the quiz, a final SMS was sent to motivate participants to go for voluntary testing and counselling at a local health centre. The number of people who went for testing at local centres increased from 1 000 to 1 400 in six weeks, says the study.
In several countries, diabetes sufferers can measure their blood sugar level with a device connected to a cellphone, which sends the data to local doctors to verify. Other applications monitor people with heart problems or Alzheimer's disease.
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