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Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Women in Development

mHealth for Women: A Diverse Set of Applications

Photo Credit: Anupam Nath / AP

In an ode to International Women’s Day, we wanted to review a few of the mobile health projects and programs directly focused on women’s health issues. mHealth has a great variance in the type of applications used to promote and assist in women’s health. This ranges from sending health information about pregnancy via basic text messaging to more advanced tools that allow community health workers to collect data, diagnosis diseases, and refer patients. As the need and ability to extend health information to women in developing countries increases, here is a diverse set of examples that have been used or are in current use.

MOTECH

Launched in Ghana, the Grameen Foundation’s Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTECH) initiative has a duel focus – providing health information to pregnant women and arming community health workers with applications to track the services provide to women and children. This project was funded by the Gates Foundation and has worked in partnership with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the Ghana Health Service. The “Mobile Midwife” application provides pregnant women with time-specific information about their pregnancy via text or voice messages. This includes reminders about seeking care, advice on how to deal with specific challenges during pregnancy, and knowledge about best practices and child development. The Nurses’ Application allows community health workers to register and track the care provided to patients in the region. By recording patient data in the MOTECH Java application and sending it to the MOTECH database, the system captures the data and can send automatic reminders to nurses for when and what type of follow up care to provide. For more information about the MOTECH as well as the lessons learned, read the report from March 2011, “Mobile Technology for Community Health in Ghana: What It Is and What Grameen Foundation Has Learned So Far.”

MAMA

Launch in May 2011, MAMA (Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action) is a public-private partnership focused leveraging mobile connectivity to improve information and access to health care for pregnant and new mothers in developing countries. USAID and Johnson & Johnson are the founding partners, and the United Nations Foundation, the mHealth Alliance, and BabyCenter are supporting partners. This initial 3-year, $10 million investment from USAID and J&J is being used to build and expand global capacity of new and current mHelath programs in three countries – Bangladesh, South Africa, and India. The beauty of the MAMA Partnership is the focus on country ownership through these partners. And each country has a separate focus based on the specific needs and problems of the maternal health. In Bangladesh, the focus is to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality through stage-based health messages via mobile phones to low-income and at-risk mothers. The public-private partnership network in Bangladesh has already been established. Lead by D.Net, it includes technology developers (InSTEDD, SSD-Tech), corporate sponsors (BEXIMCO), outreach NGOs (Save the Children, BRAC), mobile operators (Airtel, Grameenphone, Banglalink), content providers (MCC Ltd), media (Unitrend Limited, Brand Forum), researchers (ICDDR, B), and government agencies (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare). In India, MAMA is completing a landscape analysis to understand the complex cultural environment and see in what areas mobile phones can be utilized to improve maternal health throughout the country. Finally, in South Africa, MAMA has partnered with the Praekelt Foundation (lead partner), Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, and Cell-life to provide messages to pregnant and new mothers about receiving earlier antenatal care, prevention mother-to-child HIV transmission, and exclusively breastfeeding.

CycleTel

Developed by the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) at Georgetown University, CycleTel is an innovative solution, combining a previously used family planning technique with mobile phones. In 2001, IRH created the Standard Days Method (SDM) as a low-cost alternative to family planning based on a women’s menstrual cycle. By avoiding intercourse on a woman’s most fertile days during her menstrual cycle, days 8 to 19, there is only a 5% chance of becoming pregnant. Having developed the system, IRH saw a natural fit with mobile phones. In the original set up, women would use Cyclebeads (multiple colored beads used to represent specific days of a menstrual cycle) to keep track of when they are more likely to become pregnant. Using the same idea, the CycleTel replaced the beads with a mobile phone. Each month on the first day of menses, a women text messages the system. Utilizing FrontlineSMS, it then responds by sending a message showing which days she could get pregnant. In 2009, IRH conducted a research study in the region of Uttar Pradesh, India. The pilot showed the need to tweak the system to fit the region context including the local languages and women’s past experience using mobile phones. But it also showed the willingness of women and men to pay for the service in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies. This program is being operated under to the Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FAM) Project which is funded by USAID.

Dunia Wanita

Dunia Wanita, which means World of Women, was launched in February 2010 by Telkomsel, a MNO in Indonesia. It is a part of the MNO’s value-added services applications and is specifically for women to receive information on a number of different topics, including health. The subscription costs $0.12 per day. By dialing *468#, women have access to a “one stop info service.” By selecting “Cantik Sehat” (Health and Beautiful), women can receive health information and advice from famous Indonesian doctors. The voice messages include information about sexual health, pregnancy, and healthy living.

These are just a few examples of mobile health applications that are available to women in the developing world. The applications vary in information provided, media used, and business models utilized. This is a great illustration of how diverse mobile health can be in order to reach a targeted group within a country, based on infrastructure, location, health knowledge, and mobile usage/connectivity.

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Women in Development

50 Ideas and Solutions that Deliver for Girls and Women

As you may have heard Women Deliver is celebrating the progress made on behalf of girls and women worldwide. Building on its 2011 competition, which featured inspiring people who have delivered for girls and women, this year they have chosen to spotlight top ideas and solutions in the following five categories:

•   Technologies and Innovations
•   Educational Initiatives
•   Health Modernization
•   Advocacy and Awareness Campaigns
•   Leadership and Empowerment Programs

Out of hundreds of submissions, a selection committee has chosen 25 per category. The top 125 have been posted here, where viewers can choose and vote on ten favorites per category. Several of the chosen innovations and solutions incorporate the use of mobile technologies for health, showing the increasing inclusion of this type of innovation for the advancement of women’s health. Finalists include the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT) by M-PESA, and many, many others.

In addition, the mHealth Alliance’s Catalytic Grant Mechanism for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH) and mHealth has been chosen as one of the top 25 ideas and solutions in the health intervention category. The Innovation Working Group, part of the Every Woman Every Child initiative, Norad, and the mHealth Alliance have partnered in the creation of a competitive and catalytic grant mechanism with a special focus on growing programs with sustainable financing models and early indications of impact. The projects supported through this grant mechanism harness the reach and popularity of mobile phones to help women, their families, and their health care providers in low-income settings combat inequitable access to quality health services. Funding is awarded through annual competitions managed by the mHealth Alliance and allows winners to take mHealth pilot programs to scale. You can find out information on this year’s grantees here.

Please show your support for mobile innovations and vote. The top 50 winners will be announced on March 8th, International Women’s Day. Vote now!

Initiative:

Maternal Newborn mHealth

February 27, 2012/by actualize

Education, Family Planning, Health, HIV/AIDS, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Youth Development

Computer-based Sex Education Program Proves Effective in HIV Prevention

A recently released paper looking at systematic approaches to program adaptation of evidence-based health promotion programs focused on the computer-based sexuality education program, The World Starts With Me (WSWM), for a case study.

WSWM, introduced in 2003 by the World Population Foundation, was developed for a priority population in Uganda and adapted for use in Indonesia this year. The program’s target population includes both school-going young people and early school leavers, generally ages 12-19, and is complemented with teacher-led activities. It utilizes a comprehensive approach that includes building IT-skills and creative expression, aiming to contribute to sexual and reproductive health as well as social and economic development.

Student using The World Starts With Me program

Photo Credit: The World Starts With Me

The program provides introductory computer skills lessons as well as 14 lessons on adolescent development, decision making and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The lessons employ effective sex education methods, including practical applications to increase knowledge, develop attitudes, and help youth recognize and cope with social influences.

The paper’s authors, all public health professionals and academics, chose WSWM as their case study because of its proven success. In 2004, the program received the Golden Nica Award by Prix Ars Electronica in the digital communities category, and UNESCO used WSWM’s digital curriculum as a guideline for implementing effective sexuality education.

A meta-analysis revealed that computer technology-based programs like WSWM have similar results to traditional human-delivered interventions in terms of HIV/AIDS prevention behavior adoption. In particular, they proved to have positive results in increased condom use and reduced sexual activity, numbers of sex partners and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Computer-based assignments also allow programs like WSWM to be student-driven, which means teachers are less burdened to talk about sensitive sexuality issues which may be uncomfortable for students. According to the meta-analysis, given computer-based programs’ “low cost to deliver, ability to customize intervention content, and flexible dissemination channels, they hold much promise for the future of HIV prevention.”

http://www.theworldstarts.org/

This research paper reveals that ICT-based HIV-prevention programs like WSWM can be effectively adapted in other contexts, which could lead to widespread reduction in HIV rates among young people.

December 1, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health Systems, Infectious Diseases, Maternal & Child Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

New app gives Thailand’s healthcare chance to go paperless

A doctor using the Family Folder Collector app on an Android pad, collecting information on a member patient. Photo Credit: bangkokpost.com

Thailand’s public health system has developed a mobile app for Android enabled tablet PC’s to monitor and collect household information on patients. The app, called Family Folder Collector (FFC), was developed by a research team at the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec).

Nectec researcher Watcharakon Noothong said the application comprises three major programs, including a walking map, genogram (a pictorial display of a patient’s health and family relationships) and Java Health Center Information System (JHCIS) synchronization.

FFC is designed to make life easier for public health workers who collect data on patients and for patients who are on time sensitive treatment schedules and cannot travel to health stations at any given moment for treatment.

The app is free. The only cost to utilize the service is paying for the tablet PC’s which is being covered by the province’s public health office.

Here are some of the features and capabilities of the FFC app:

Google maps shows the exact location and number of households in a given area
Genograms can be displayed
Chronic disease frequency can be color coded on a house-to-house basis
The program can collect and store other vital data, such as a patient’s weight, height, blood pressure and pulse rate, and even calculate a patient’s body mass index (BMI) automatically.
The program provides forms for treatment results, initial symptoms, health recommendations, and health behaviors
Doctors can schedule future appointments with patients
In the near future, the program will also be able to send an SMS to alert patients to get treatment at the health station.

All the collected data is updated and stored on the Android device then synchronized to the JHCIS database server. Public health workers were trained on how to properly input data into the tablet PC’s before pilot testing started. Of a total of 25 districts in the province of Ubon Ratchathani, eight are running the pilot trial of the FFC program, which, in its first phase, covers 123 health stations.

Ubon Ratchathani was chosen as the province since its existing IT infrastructure can accommodate sophisticated ICT’s for healthcare. There are over 1.8 million people in the province, all of whom will be accounted for by health workers using the FFC app.

This do-it-all app is a valuable tool for public health officials and physicians in Thailand. FFC can potentially replace the paper based system of collecting data and monitoring patients in Thailand.

The FFC application can display a genogram, monitor chronic diseases with Google Maps, and locate the house coordinates using a GPS system. Photo Credit: bangkokpost.com

The potential benefits of using this service are bountiful. Patient data will be gathered much easier and will be much harder to lose over time. Doctors can schedule appointments and prescribe treatments without physically seeing patients. Also, analysis of patient data will be faster, more efficient and more accurate.

Thailand may experience a revolution in healthcare if this service lives up to its potential. Currently, each health station has one tablet PC equipped with the program. The FFC application is expected to run throughout the province covering all 346 health stations by 2012.

Furthermore, according to Sinchai Tawwuttanakidgul, director of ICT Centre, Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Health, today there are some 45 provinces that are ready to switch from their paper-based system to the FFC mobile application. It sounds like Thailand is ready to experience that revolution soon.

August 11, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Delivering babies in Ghana just got a little easier

Pregnant woman on phone. Photo Credit: MOTECH

A new mobile phone service was recently launched in Ghana that provides free access to health information in ensuring safe pregnancies. The service, aptly named Mobile Midwife, offers text or voice messaging on maternal health to pregnant women.

Mobile Midwife was developed as part of the U.S. based Grameen Foundation’s MOTECH Ghana initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is just one more result of rising donor attention to mHealth services. Its creation continues a trend of mHealth initiatives being churned out in Africa.

Educating women and making them aware of the maternal health risks associated with pregnancies are the cornerstone goals of the service. To make it convenient for the user, the service comes in several different languages, and is presented by text or voice via mobile phones. Additionally, the messages are time specific concurring with the woman’s stage of pregnancy.

When a pregnant woman registers for the service, they are asked to give the expected due date for delivery of the unborn child and their location. Then, periodically, the woman receives messages informing when appointments are due or overdue to remind them to visit the health clinic for check-ups.

The users also get reminders for specific treatments, information about milestones in fetal development, nutrition facts, tips on the benefits of breastfeeding and other pregnancy-related and prenatal health information. It also provides information that demystifies local pregnancy myths and helps users overcome the widespread fear of visiting doctors or health clinics.

MOTECH also rolled out a similar mobile health service earlier in the year that enables nurses in rural Ghanaian health facilities to automate much of their record keeping and reporting, which formerly took 4-6 days per month. The service is in the form of a java–based mobile phone application.

Both Mobile Midwife and the application mentioned above have made life easier for everyone involved in the process of delivering a baby.

One Ghanaian mother said to Grameen, “I would like to advise my pregnant friends to go to the hospital to enroll into MOTECH, to listen to the messages and also to practice what is said because it helps a lot…I used to be scared about pregnancy but now with the messages I am no longer scared and it has taken away my worries and that we feel ok and then the pregnancy is ok.”

This service is extremely pertinent since Africa exhibits some of the worst maternal health records in the world. Fourteen of the fifteen countries with the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world are in Africa. Furthermore, African countries are far behind in meeting Millennium Development Goals set for 2015; especially for those associated with maternal health. Perhaps services like this can lend a helping hand.

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health, Health Systems, Infectious Diseases, Maternal & Child Health, Mobile, Nutrition, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

New mHealth service gives Iraq options for monitoring health

Iraq’s largest private telecommunications company, Asiacell, announced this week the launch of its mobile health content download and SMS service which is now available to its prepaid and postpaid subscribers. Asiacell is the only mobile telecom company providing coverage for all of Iraq.

An Iraqi man holds a cell phone. Photo Credit: Mario Tama, Getty Images

The new service offers information on various health practices which can be discriminately selected by the user. Asiacell offers a weekly and a daily health update service. The daily health updates include information on women’s health, men’s health, children’s health, dieting, mental health, and diabetes. Albeit a little more limited, the weekly updates is a downloadable service which only cover topics such as sports and fitness, mental health, and emergency medicine.

Customers can subscribe to the daily SMS service, by sending a blank SMS message to the toll-free short code “2330”, and then send their preferred health topic, which they can choose from a list that will be automatically sent via SMS, to short code “2331”. This service costs IQD 2,500 ($2.14) per month.

Subscribers can also download content on a weekly basis by sending the number “1” to short code “2332” for sports and fitness information, or to “2333” for mental health information, or to “2334” for emergency medicine information. This service costs IQD 2,000 ($1.71) per month.

A similar service operates in India called mDhil which uses SMS to send health messages on various topics. The service overcame social stigmas regarding certain topics of health such as reproductive health, and became one of the most successful mHealth programs in India. Asiacell’s new service faces identical hurdles in Iraq and hopes to prevail like mDhil did.

Photo Credit: Asiacell

Asiacell is the only telecom provider to cover all of Iraq. They provide services to nearly 8 million of the estimated 31 million living in Iraq. This is remarkable given that just 5 years ago under the reign of Saddam Hussein, less than one million Iraqis had access to land lines and the average civilian did not have access to a mobile phone. Despite that and the war which ruined telecommunication infrastructure, Iraqis now have steady access to telecom services, especially mobile phones.

It is probably due to the increased access to information that has led Iraqis to become more health conscious claims Asiacell. Dr. Mustafa Adil, an Iraqi physician, said that maintaining a healthy lifestyle has become a major concern for communities, as people are more aware of the importance of following the latest health advancements and practices. He explained that Asiacell’s Mobile Health service supports the healthcare sector’s goal to promote sound health habits.

July 6, 2011/by actualize

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