Sharmin Sultana :
Improving the health status of people by using mobile devices is called mHealth. In a broader sense “mHealth encompasses any use of mobile technology to address health care challenges such as access, quality, affordability, matching of resources, and behavioral norms [through] the exchange of information” (Qiang et al. 2012).
Mobile phone, laptop, netbook and tablet are used as mobile devices. Developed countries have many facilities for providing health care, but there are different types of challenges in developing countries to ensure health care. mHealth is supporting both developed and developing countries to improve health care services and becoming more popular day by day. Mobile devices can help to provide health care even in remote areas.
Developing countries suffer different health related problems which is marginal in developed countries. mHealth helps to reduce the spread of different diseases, increases the opportunity of treatment, builds awareness about diseases, and motivates people to change behavior. Different non-communicable disease like- cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease are the cause of the death of 35 million people worldwide. About 80% of this death is happening in the developing countries. mHealth can increase the extend of the health system and treatment of disease to reduce the deaths and disease burden.
Maternal and child death is a great threat for the developing world. To achieve MDG 4 & 5 we need to reduce the death of under five children and we also need to lower the complication during pregnancy and childbirth. Every year 350,000 women die because of the complications during childbirth and thousands of women suffer from lifelong complications and face economical problems. According to Hogan and others (2010) 24% children can survive up to the age of 10 whose mother dies during childbirth and 89% children can survive whose mothers are alive. mHealth can provide different life saving services to save mother’s life.
mHealth is used for social and behavior change communications, skill development, health care service delivery, supply management, information management and financial transaction etc. Financial transaction helps to get access of health care. Supply management helps to ensure the supply of medical and emergency equipments. Information management system helps patients to get healthcare related information. mHealth is used in Kenya to build skilled workforce by proving reinforcing sms. In Ghana, Liberia and Tanzania telemedicine and provider to provider communication helps proving support like diagnosis, treatment and management of diseases. In Nepal the demographic and health survey was conducted by using a tablet computer in 2011 which was very quick and accurate.
Different mHealth programs are operational in Bangladesh like mCare, Aponjon and many more; these provide different information to pregnant and lactating mother regarding health and nutrition related matter. Recently eHealth pilot project has been undertaken in Bangladesh. The project title “BKMI” was under Global Knowledge for Health (K4Health) project. The project seeks to strengthen Health, Population and Nutrition (HPN) communication efforts of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in Bangladesh. Under this initiative digital BCC material- netbooks were provided for three months to the health workers of Chittagong and Sylhet area to build their capacity and improve health care services. In that pilot project health worker got the chance to learn from e-course and e-toolkits. These easy to learn pictorial messages helped the field workers to gain updated knowledge and perform their duty in a better way which increased the interest of community people to seek heath care. BKMI- II is being implemented now and its aim is to develop the capacity of Govt. of Bangladesh, USAID implementing partners, and other donor partners regarding SBCC issues. It also works for creating a community of practice for SBCC in Bangladesh. Hopefully this initiate will be able to make positive changes in Bangladesh.
According to a recent report (Telenor Group 2012) mHealth can reduce the data collection cost by approximately 24%, the health care cost of elderly people by 25% and maternal and perinatal mortality by 30%. mHealth is more useful for developing countries where mobile is not only helpful as a communication tool but also provide general health related information, medical insurance and payment related information. According to the World Health Organization’s global observatory for ehealth about 83% of 112 countries have at least one mheath program. According to that survey the gap between low and high income country adoption of mHealth is not so high. In low income country 77% and in high income country 87% have at least one mHealth program.
Mobile health messages are portable and accessible; helps dispel myths, highlight warning signs, cost effective, and can provide better health care from limited resources. So we have to remove the barriers to adopt mHealth programs. The barriers are insufficient financial resources; lack of sustainable business model, limited evidence, difficulty to coordinate with stakeholder and implementing a project in large scale after piloting etc. The success of mHealth is also depends on the effective monitoring and evaluation of the program. Finally, we have to find out more innovative ideas like mHealth to build a happy and healthy world.
(Sharmin Sultana works with Bangladesh Knowledge management Initiative. [email protected])
