A Mobile Phone-Based, Community Health Worker Program for Referral, Follow-Up, and Service Outreach in Rural Zambia: Outcomes and Overview

Abstract

CHWs completed all planned aspects of surveillance and outreach, demonstrating feasibility. Components of this pilot project may aid clinical care in rural settings and have potential for epidemiologic and health system applications. Thus, m-health has the potential to improve service outreach, guide activities, and facilitate data collection in Zambia.

Using a mHealth system to recall and refer existing clients and refer community members with health concerns to primary healthcare facilities in South Africa: a feasibility study

“…One approach to overcoming this challenge in future implementations of similar mHealth systems could be to integrate the mHealth functions into facility-level electronic health information systems, where these already exist. For example, a Zambian study similar to ours, but with automated issuing of recalls, achieved a much higher recall success rate (63%) than the 28% in our study [38]. Several studies confirm the need for integration, claiming that it may strengthen health system functioning [39] and promote the sustainability of the mHealth system [40].…”

Differences in Access to and Use of Electronic Personal Health Information Between Rural and Urban Residents in the United States

“…Another is in teledermatology, in which a patient can photograph a lesion and receive clinical feedback from a primary care provider; this is already being piloted in South Dakota . While uptake of these interventions on a broader scale will require additional study, similar methods and HIT tools have been shown to be highly successful in rural areas worldwide, such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Zambia …”

“…42 While uptake of these interventions on a broader scale will require additional study, similar methods and HIT tools have been shown to be highly successful in rural areas worldwide, such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Zambia. [43][44][45][46] One of the major strengths of this investigation is in the use of a large, multi year, nationally representative sample of US adults to examine differences in use of HIT tools by whether respondents lived in rural or urban areas. This is the first study we are aware of that examines differences in uptake of these technologies in this manner and across time.…”

Telehealth in the developing world: current status and future prospects

“…With the advent of "m-health" (simply e-health using mobile devices) and availability of smartphones, the developing world has seen a plethora of initiatives, many directed toward the support of rural and isolated CHWs and child and maternal health needs. [52][53][54][55][56] Piette et al 57 reported …”