Health – Page 6 – Integra LLC

New telemedicine center in Nigeria aims to keep patients at home

A new telemedicine center opened last month in Lagos, Nigeria with the purpose of providing healthcare to local Nigerians. Designated as the Glo-Telemedicine Center, located on Victoria Island in Lagos, this center is a product of the collaboration between Nigeria’s Global Resources and Projects and healthcare providers in India, U.S., Egypt and other countries.

Photo Credit: Onche Odeh

The center is designed to minimize transportation concerns for Nigerians, especially those in isolated areas, to bring them expert healthcare from abroad. According to the executive officer of Global Resources Dr. Wale Alabi, “the Glo-Telemedicine Centre would bridge the gap between the poor and good health services by creating a simless [sic: seamless] communication between them and those with the expertise and facilities to help them.”

Dr. Alabi cited the high prevalence of Nigerians using life savings, and even taking out crippling loans to travel to foreign countries seeking expert healthcare. Dr. Alabi also claimed that over 60% of those who go abroad for services can get those same services in Nigeria, but often go abroad due to incorrect diagnoses.

The center will be used as a medical tool to reduce medical costs and substantially increase range of access to patients. The center is designed to offer specialty treatments to Nigerians at a low cost. It will also offer Continuing Medical Education to health professionals as a means to keep them informed of latest trends in health services.

The center’s capabilities are dependent on broadband fiber optics supplied by a Nigerian Telecommunication firm called Globacom. Their services take advantage of advances in ICT to transmit text, sound, video, image and other information from one location to another location.

Telemedicine is an application of medicine that takes advantage of electronic communications to transfer information from one location to another, often between health provider and patient, or between two health providers. Dr. Alabi noted that the success of telemedicine in African countries such as Kenya and Ghana is “transforming those countries.”

Similarly, Dr Alabi hopes the center will ultimately transform the way Nigerians think about accessing healthcare. However, this is not the first telemedicine project in Nigeria. Several years ago, the Nigerian government through the ministries of science and technology and health, commissioned a pilot telemedicine project that used satellite-based technologies. That project, called the NigComSat-1 Telemedicine pilot, was labeled impractical due to high costs and inapplicability. The Glo-Telemedicine center however, took note and addressed those issues, which is why it is now fully operational to Nigerians.

June 14, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Infectious Diseases, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

HP plans to provide mobile technology to tackle malaria

Nurse using app on Palm Pre 2 smartphone in Botswana. Photo Credit: HP

On June 6^th, Hewlett Packard (HP) announced it will collaborate with a non-profit organization in Botswana to provide technology to monitor and treat malaria outbreaks. HP announced it will begin a yearlong clinical trial that will equip medical professionals in Botswana with Palm Pre 2 smartphones designed to collect information on malaria outbreaks.

HP will supply the technology to the non-profit group Positive Innovation for the Next Generation (PING) who will train health workers to collect the data on malaria outbreaks. The data will be collected and stored through an application on the smartphones provided. The application can store photos, videos, audio files as well as GPS information which can be used to generate a geographic map of the areas affected by outbreaks, which has never before been done in Botswana.

The program hopes to increase the rates of mosquito net distribution and provide advanced warnings to regions at risk of an outbreak. Within a day, health workers can achieve results that would normally takes weeks to produce.

Malaria is one of the most widespread infectious diseases, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), takes nearly one million lives every year, mostly in Africa. WHO has predicted as much as 10% of the African population is under the threat of malaria. Therefore, controlling outbreaks and being able to predict devastating malaria epidemics is crucial to alleviating its burden.

What’s also noteworthy here is that HP is plunging into the mobile health monitoring market, one example of HP’s plans to contribute to global healthcare. Instead of putting money into pockets, HP is aiming to contribute technology and other innovative solutions to tackle challenges that are hindering healthcare around the world. This shouldn’t surprise anyone however, since HP was one of the founding members of the mHealth alliance.

This program indicates the rising importance of mobile health technology as a key player in tackling health burdens in developing countries. Using mobile technologies, whether to collect data from isolated populations or to monitor disease prevalence presents an avenue for NGO’s and governments to reduce health service costs and increase accessibility. HP hopes to scale up this program to all of Africa, contingent upon success in Botswana.

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June 10, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Humanitarian Assistance, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Medic Mobile introduces first mobile SIM application for healthcare use

Medic Mobile, a mobile health non-profit based in Washington D.C., announced the development of the first mobile SIM application for healthcare on June 6th. SIM apps can operate on 80% of the world’s phones ranging from $15 handsets to Android smart phones, so their potential use means reaching unimagined levels in data collection.

The SIM applications are menu based applications on mobile phones that reduce costs and increase accessibility for patients. Says CEO Josh Nesbit on his blog, “I can imagine all eight million global community health workers utilizing SIM applications to support their work and improve the lives of their patients.” Through these applications, patients don’t need to see a doctor, they can simply register their health data through the app and the data gets sent to health professionals who send feedback.

Medic Mobile is a pioneer in developing SMS based communication solutions. The organization started out with a project in Malawi where their SMS services saved clinical staffers 1,200 hours of patient follow-up time, thousands of dollars in costs and doubled the number of patients who were treated for Tuberculosis. Perhaps their most well known project came after the earthquakes that devastated Haiti. Mobile Medic created an SMS database where people could text the number “4636” to be tagged, mapped and subsequently assisted. Thousands of victims were rescued with this service.

SMS and SIM application based healthcare services can serve as a blueprint in the developing world to alleviate health burdens. Over half of all Africans use mobile technology, and according to an ITU report, over 70% of low and middle-income countries utilize mobile technology. Mobile technologies dominate any other technology in the developing world. They are cheap and conveniently accessible.

Photo Credit: Medic Mobile

Nesbit sees great potential and envisions applications that help patients schedule appointments, access remote consultations and connect with health care professionals during a medical emergency. Nesbit’s products are proof that mobile phones can be a game changer in providing healthcare. They can essentially serve as health professionals at any place and any time. Not even the developed world can claim that.

Medic Mobile, a mobile health company started in college by Josh Nesbit, is a trailblazer in the field.

June 10, 2011/by actualize

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

UN calls for increased sustainability of mobile health clinics in Pakistan

Mobile maternal health clinic on the road. Photo Credit: UNFPA

Nearly a year after the devastating floods in Pakistan, calls are being made by UNICEF health officials to expand capacities of mobile health clinics in the country. The clinics were first developed in response to the 2005 earthquakes in the northern region of Pakistan. Although the mobile clinics have touched hundreds of thousands of lives, more will be needed with expanded capabilities to ensure their long term impact.

In October 2005, the UNFPA joined hands with the Pakistani government and created mobile health clinics, whose main focus was on maternal health needs. By 2008, these clinics had treated over 850,000 patients, mostly for maternal and child health related issues. The clinics, still running, are staffed by women and are stocked with equipment and supplies for quality maternal health care. Since 2005, UNICEF has also become a key funder for mobile health clinics in Pakistan.

The UNICEF funded mobile health clinics tackle a variety of health issues, with an emphasis on maternal and child health. These clinics are staffed by three health workers, and treat up to 300 patients on a daily basis. After the emergence of the floods that affected 20 million people in Pakistan in July 2010, these health clinics became pivotal in reaching isolated populations.

Healthcare for women and children is better now than it was before the floods and the earthquake. However, despite the welcomed success of these mobile health clinics, there has been a call to expand the capacities for the mobile health clinics in order to make them more sustainable. This is where the world of ICT can step in and lend a helping hand.

The potential for impact is highest is rural and isolated areas where resources are poor and hardest to reach. According to a UNDP report, “ICT is yet to be widely mainstreamed to assist developing countries in addressing traditional development problems with innovative solutions and approaches that are both effective and more easily scalable and replicable.”

ICT services can complement existing initiatives such as the mobile health clinics in Pakistan to attenuate health burdens such as maternal mortality, which is what the UNFPA funded clinics focused on. This would be crucial in rural areas where ICT services would be invaluable. ICT services can potentially offer live video or audio feeds to health professionals when examining patients as well as educational classes to women from urban based instructors using the mobile clinics already in use.

Once ICT services are in place, NGO’s and government agencies can directly improve citizen access to information and at the same time, immediately strengthen their own capacities to help the citizens. Pakistan and other developing nations will only continue to reap the benefits for years to come.

June 9, 2011/by actualize

Health, Infectious Diseases, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

World Malaria Day 2011

Photo Credit: TopNews

Yesterday commemorated the fourth World Malaria Day and increasingly ICTs are being used in the battle to fight against this deadly disease.

In 1997, Dr. Julia Royall was named the chief of international programs at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health to create a telecommunications network to support scientists working on the Malaria Multilateral Initiative in Africa.

Dr. Julia Royall Photo Credit: NIH

Dr. Royall explains that she soon became interested in, “NLM’s attempt to reach the end user with information”.

In 2007-2008, Dr. Royall was a Fulbright Scholar in Uganda and traveled to a Mifumi, a remote village in the Eastern district or Tororo, Uganda to conduct research on 300 received bed nets that had been received.

Along with a team of medical students from Uganda’s Makerere University Faculty of Medicine they conducted an observational survey to see how the 300 families were using bed nets to protect themselves from malaria carrying mosquitoes.

She quickly discovered that nets were not being used properly due to widespread misunderstandings about the disease and the purpose of how to use the nets themselves within the community.

In the village, they eat outside at dusk when mosquitos presence is at a peak; believe that health effects of malaria are due to “witchcraft”; and standing water around houses attracts the bugs near windows and doorways.

The World Health Organization has reported a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds in Africa.

After this baseline research, Dr. Royall passionately pursued developing a new method to demonstrate that information can be targeted to improve health awareness among underserved populations in Africa.

She decided to work with the local community to produce informational tutorials on malaria prevention, which Dr. Royall deems as “health information intervention”.

Dr. Royall with Makerere University Medical Students Photo Credit: NIH

Collaborating with Makerere University medical faculty, students, and a team of artists and translators, she produced an interactive tutorial to try and discover if ICTs have an impact on malaria mortality rates.

Dr. Royall field tested the malaria tutorial in the Mifumi village villages by students and then translated into three local languages: Luganda, Runyankole, and Luo. She wanted to see how this ICT could be used:

We wanted to see if such a ‘health information intervention’ from NLM through medlineplus.gov could make a difference

Makerere University medical students then took the lead in making and distributing booklets, posters and audio CD formats to be used on the radio, an important communication tool in rural Uganda.

Dr. Royall was adamant about making the content culturally relevant to ensure overall sustainability. Cultural context also has an affect on the results of preventative malaria campaigns.

“We had to be careful,” she said, “about working with these communities to define what the products would look like.”

Screen shot of the tutorials in English

Her health information intervention tutorials have resulted in reduced mortality in Eastern Uganda:

ICT interventions, are making a difference at the village level

Dr. Royall’s virtual tutorials have promise for other malaria prevention projects facing similar barriers. All of the materials are available online here to anyone with access to the Internet in the five languages (Luo, Japadhola, Luganda, Runyankole Swahili and English)

In addition to the tutorials, health workers can use a laminated presentation to explain how malaria works and there is also an audio version in the five languages available for radio broadcast and illiterate communities.

View this video on her story:

April 26, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health Systems, Infectious Diseases, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Cell Phone Attachment Helps/Manages Malaria

Today is World Health Day 2011 and theme this year is on antimicrobial resistance. In developing countries, one of the most pressing health issues is malaria, with a high morbidity and mortality rate. Rapid diagnosis and prompt treatment are most basic managerial elements on how to circumvent this vicious disease. The attachment of a microscope onto a cell phone, known as Cellscope, can help with these diagnoses.

View the Prezi below to see how the innovative mHealth tool can help rural health workers.

Copy of CellScope Story on Prezi

April 7, 2011/by actualize

Health, Maternal & Child Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Using cell phones to improve pregnancy in Herat

A community health worker shows a visual aid

Photo credit: Dimagi

With funding from USAID, World Vision and Dimagi will conduct operations research to test if the use of CommCare will increase the uptake of healthy actions, improve knowledge of important information points, and improve communications and coordination between community health workers (CHWs) and higher trained workers.

CommCare is a phone-based application to strengthen community health programs. CHWs use software running on a phone during each client visit to improve quality of care and data reporting. When the CHW is within range of a cellular network, data is automatically submitted to a central server for use in program management, monitoring and health surveillance.

World Vision’s study will focus on improving the uptake of a list of identified “Healthy Actions” and knowledge of key “Important Information” points. It will also study the improvement that the phone make between the CHWs for coordination with midwives and other health experts. World Vision expects the following:

Utilization – increased percentage of healthy actions taken by pregnant women
Knowledge Access – increased knowledge by pregnant women of the important information points
Access- increased use of midwives and expert services via phone calls

The primary CommCare module the study will focus on promotes essential care during and immediately after pregnancy. The module reinforces the training the CHWs will have received based on the American College of Nurse-Midwives Home Based Life Saving Skills. The module is designed to quickly bring a CHW through key points of identifying and responding to emergency signs including difficulty breathing, low birth weight, and hypothermia. The module then helps the CHW promote simple but effective hygiene and preventive care to reduce infections such as infected cord stumps, pneumonia, and tetanus.

A key challenge World Vision encountered was that the CHWs in the Herat region are low-literate. CommCare was, therefore, adapted for low-literate users by including audio prompts and images. These multimedia prompts have been found to also help engage the client more, as the CHWs play the audio clips and show images to their clients.

The following video demonstrates how the CommCare application works:

CommCare-Sense House Visit 1 from Derek Treatman on Vimeo.

Click here to learn more about this project.

March 8, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Cross Cutting, Democracy & Governance, Economic Growth & Trade, Education, Environment, Environment, Health, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Apps for Development

Apps for Development.

Voting is open for the World Bank’s apps for development competition.

“The Apps for Development Competition aims to bring together the best ideas from both the software developer and the development practitioner communities to create innovative apps using World Bank data.”

I like the idea. But many of the apps appear to be solutions looking for a problem, probably due to the requirements that entries use World Bank data and address the Millennium Development Goals. Many entries were not meant to address field-level development needs, which is disappointing. But it is a great initiative, which can be adjusted in future efforts.

The Microsoft sponsored ImagineCup 2011 student IT competition is under way too. Its theme is imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems, also based on the Millennium Development Goals. Deadlines loom so pass the word to interested students.

It will be very interesting to see what comes out of these contests, and if someone can analyze them, see what we can learn about ramping up efforts to develop technologies to solve real-world problems.

Personally, I would like to see the GBI portal become a clearinghouse for practical apps for development – an app store for development, if you will.

March 1, 2011/by actualize

Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Time to get mHealth moving – SciDev.Net

Using mobile devices to collect and share health data can make healthcare cheaper, faster and more equitable …. You can’t see health data as they flow from clinic to decision-maker — but they are absolutely critical for informing good policies and allocating resources appropriately.

Read the article at Time to get mHealth moving – SciDev.Net.

February 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Infectious Diseases, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

2011 mHealth Trends- Webinar

MobiHealthNews held their first webinar, last Thursday, February 11,to discuss mobile health news and trends that will likely emerge during the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2011 annual gathering this year in Orlando. The webinar, which was attended by health professionals and practioners around the world was the first of its kind to predict future innovations and trends in mobile health.

Brian Dolan, MobiHealthNews editor, discussed the increasing expansion of peripheral health devices. Most of these were manufactured to assist medical practitioners in the developed world, but a few stood out as contenders for development context:

iHealth blood pressure dock

The iHealth blood pressure dock, which allows you to monitor your blood pressure blood on your iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad .

iPhone ECG case developed by AliveCor called the iPhonECG is a great new device. This gadget turns your Apple iPhone 4 into Electrocardiogram (ECG) by putting it into a special $100 case, however it has not been approved for sale in the U.S. yet. This would possess the capability to help healthcare works in the field monitor electrical activity of the heart and detect any heart disease, allowing them to assess the patient’s level of risk more accurately.
Cellscope which turns a cell phone into a high-magnification microscope.is a revolutionary approach to curing infectious disease are a huge upcoming trend that will launch throughout the year and gain FDA approval.
The CellScope

The HIMSS will hold its annual conference on February 20-24, where hundreds of corporate and non-for-profit members come together to collaborate on their mission to transform healthcare through effective use of IT and management systems.. Each year a few innovations stand out among the crowd. Two years ago, one of the big themes that emerged was that an electronic medical records (EMR) vendor developed a smartphone application. Last year, tablets such as the iPad, emerged as catalysts for mHealth devices to grow in usage.

February 14, 2011/by actualize

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