Implementing Mobile Phone Solutions for Health in Resource Constrained Areas: Understanding the Opportunities and Challenges

Evidence on feasibility and effective use of mHealth strategies by frontline health workers in developing countries: systematic review

“…Twenty‐five studies included in this review had data collection as one of the primary mHealth functions being performed by FHWs. Several studies suggested that mobile phones are an effective way to collect and report data from the community transfer patient‐relevant information to a centralised database and reduce the need for face‐to‐face communication between FHWs and other members of the health delivery team such as ambulance drivers, health facility staff and staff at district‐ and central‐level hospitals . Once the client data have been entered into the system, it can be used to send health need specific messages and reminders to the client's mobile phone to facilitate health education and behaviour change communication .…”

“…Once the client data have been entered into the system, it can be used to send health need specific messages and reminders to the client's mobile phone to facilitate health education and behaviour change communication . Studies suggest that use of mobiles phones for data collection circumvents the need for FHWs to travel to a health facility to transfer client information, thereby allowing them to spend more time focusing directly on service provision . Additionally, mobile phone data collection with GPRS‐enabled phones permits real‐time identification of data falsification.…”

“…Two robust experimental studies suggest that access to health information through SMS or through mobile-based decision-support systems can improve FHW adherence to treatment regimens [ 38 , 41 ]. A number of descriptive studies suggest that mHealth tools also aid in improving communication between different levels of the healthcare system [ 10 , 16 , 27 , 42 , 44 , 47 ] and improve emergency health referrals [ 26 , 30 , 31 , 34 , 43 ]. The existing literature establishes that such interventions are feasible and largely well received by the FHW, clients, other members of the healthcare system.…”

What encourages community health workers to use mobile technologies for health interventions? Emerging lessons from rural Rwanda

“…The technical subsystem defines the technology itself. It includes mobile network coverage, communication mechanism (whether one‐way or asynchronous) electricity infrastructure and software (Manda & Herstad, ). The most essential requirement for mHealth interventions is that the information reaches facilities quickly and care is provided promptly when patients reach the health centre or hospital (Vital Wave Consulting, ).…”

Enacting technology

“…Yu et al (2006) Reported benefits of mHealth applications include: rapid communication of data, which shortens the time from data collection to aggregation and analysis (Leon et al, 2012); training of personnel via distance learning; improving patient access to medication via electronic prescription systems (ibid). Studies have also reported improved communication between community health workers and their supervisors, to aid care delivery (Leon et al, 2012;Manda and Herstad, 2010). Other benefits include: reduction in transcription errors, through elimination of intermediate levels of data entry; improvements in data quality, through embedded logic for data validation; and reduced data-entry workload for those charged with consolidation of reports (DeRenzi et al, 2011;Ganesan et al, 2011).…”