In the news and blogosphere on ICT4D, there is a heavy focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, mostly because mobile phones have exploded across the continent. But we have missed many of the innovations that are going on in Latin American and the Caribbean. In an effort to reach back to the history of mHealth, I was able to connect with one of the first individuals to work in mhealth, even before the term mhealth had been coined – Ernesto Gozzer, currently working as a Researcher and STC with the World Health Organization and is an Associate Professor at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia.

While he could not confirm that the project was the first in the world, Alerta MINSA was the first in Latin America. Originally launched on February 6^th, 2001 in the Cañete Town Hall Auditorium (in the southern part of Lima), Ernesto admitted they had no idea they were pioneering mhealth. “We thought we were helping to improve the health information systems for critical health issues. The aim was using available technology to connect the unconnected, to help to reduce the digital divide.”

Alerta MINSA stands for Alert Ministry of Health and was initially funded by InfoDev. The tool allowed for disease surveillance to send via text messages and through the internet. The information is then consolidated in a database. Alerts can then be sent when thresholds have been surpassed as well as automated reports and compiling data in tables, graphs, and maps in dashboards. Currently Alerta is the “official disease surveillance system” of the Peruvian Air Force, Navy, and Army. It also has been used in other countries including Ecuador, Panama, Tanzania, Rwanda, Colombia, and Paraguay.

My favorite idea that Ernesto talked about was the following: “So, this was not a pilot but what I call a local innovation that expanded beyond borders.” I love this quote because an innovative solution was created to solve a specific problem using mobile phones. Instead of it being the sexy thing to do, it was done out of necessity. The developers use the power of mobile phones to provide a solution to a problem. This is an important lesson that has been mentioned before in the mhealth space. Start with the problem first and then develop a solution around it. This is as true today as it was 11 years ago.