background preloader

mHealth

Facebook Twitter

ODW: How are mobile phones improving contraceptive use in Cambodia? Cambodia phones. An innovative idea to send pre-recorded messages to client's mobile phones is increasing the uptake of post-abortion family planning (PAFP) among women in Cambodia. Marie Stopes International Cambodia introduced the Mobile Technology for Improved Family Planning Services (MOTIF) project because interviews with their clients revealed that many women find it difficult to make choices about contraceptive use after their abortions. The recorded voice messages are ideal for clients with low literacy levels, and the simple technology is easy for team members to use.

An example of recorded message is: “This is a free pre-recorded message from Marie Stopes to see how you are. We hope you are well. Press 1 if you would like us to call you; for example if you would like to discuss contraception or you are having any problems with contraception. Press 2 if you don’t want us to call you; for example you are using contraception and have no side effects, or you have no need for contraception.

Verboice in Cambodia: Using the Power of Voice for Social Impact. Voice to voice interaction remains the most effective and primary form of human communication for both health care service providers and vulnerable groups who live in rural Cambodia. Due to poor network connectivity and literacy barriers, rural Cambodians are inhibited from using many technologies. While many people in rural Cambodia have access to mobile phones, literacy and Khmer language support on mobile devices is still limited. This poses a significant barrier to using SMS based mobile applications and makes voice based systems a more desirable alternative. Interactive Voice Response Systems and the Future of Cambodia Voice is the most universal and inclusive means of communication, and it’s an ideal way to expand the reach and impact of health and humanitarian technologies.

Verboice + Open Institute & Women’s Media Centre Verboice + International Labor Organization (ILO) Verboice + Marie Stopes International Verboice + BBC Media Action Let Verboice Support Your Projects. Marie Stopes International + Verboice: Will Mobile Phones Improve Contraceptive Use in Cambodia? Will Mobile Phones Improve Contraceptive Use in Cambodia? Marie Stopes International Uses Verboice to Find Out Earlier this month we had a chance to sit down with Ms.

Vannak Uk, of Marie Stopes International in Cambodia. Here’s what she had to say about how our Verboice tool and the InSTEDD iLab Southeast Asia are helping her team to answer their most critically important question: Will Mobile Phones Improve Contraceptive Use in Cambodia? Abortion in Cambodia Unsafe abortion accounts for one in eight maternal deaths in developing countries. Although abortion was legalized in Cambodia in 1997, nearly 80% of Cambodian women still believe that abortion is illegal. National health surveys suggest that nearly a quarter of Cambodian women have had one or more abortions. A Marie Stopes volunteer speaks to a group in Cambodia in order to promote post-abortion family planning which reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies. MOTIF: Mobile Technology for Improved Family Planning Services. Verboice: New Tool for Social Outreach in Cambodia. Social outreach organizations including the Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia and Better Factories Cambodia have begun using Verboice to reach communities otherwise cut off by literacy or technological barriers – lack of mobile support of local dialects, for example.

It has been used to give women and children on demand health information, to increase access to reproductive and sexual health services, and to monitor working conditions in garment factories. A free and open source tool, Verboice allows organizations to create and run projects using voice so users can listen and record messages in their language or dialect. Since, as Verboice asserts, voice is the most inclusive means of communication, their tool allows organizations to expand the reach of humanitarian efforts through mobile technology. (Mobile penetration in Cambodia was at 86 percent in early 2012, and has continued to rise.) Putting skills to work for women and families in Cambodia | VOICE.

When an opportunity arose to help educate women on reproductive health issues in Cambodia, alumna and Melbourne Faculty Access Scholarship recipient Melissa Cockroft knew it was a chance to put to work the skills she gained at the University of Melbourne. She accepted a volunteer role in Cambodia just two weeks after graduation and began what would be a life-changing journey to become a passionate advocate for women’s health in Asia. “When I first came to Cambodia I had literally just graduated and came to this country as part of the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development (AYAD) Program funded by AusAid,” Ms Cockroft says speaking from Phnom Penh. “I had always wanted to work in international development when I was at university, and I geared all of my subjects towards that.”

The 12-month volunteer role at a local NGO became a full-time job when Ms Cockroft’s contract was extended for a further year. Ms Cockroft’s work with Marie Stopes is diverse. Www.mariestopes.org.au. Benjamin Smith | Welcome. I work in digital media for a large UK-based staff association by trade, but follow all things ICT, particularly in relation to global innovation and initiatives in international development. Enjoy and share. @benjaminsmithuk. Is there a regulation for that? Apps are flooding into the healthcare market. But regulators are struggling to catch up – and many people in the industry don’t want them involved. Shanna Crispin reports. Mobile health apps were recently described as “the single-biggest digital channel since the 90s and the web” by business and research consultancy Frost and Sullivan.

The claim by the firm’s senior industry analyst, Zachary Bujnoch, was backed up by astounding figures for the growth of the mobile health market – last year the revenues made by the development of mobile apps reached £13.2 billion in the US. Bujnoch says the market has consistently outpaced forecasts for its growth and revenue; and there is no reason to think they will not continue to do so. “mHealth apps will continue on a steep growth curve as increasingly sophisticated mobile technologies and relationship-management tools disrupt the market,” he says. The FDA leads the way Apps are certainly flooding the market. More problems for the MHRA. AFRICA Growing Use of Cellphones for Family Planning. mHealth Insight: the blog of 3G Doctor. Family Planning through the Mobile Phone, No Doctor Necessary! Family Planning via Mobile Phones: Proof-of-Concept Testing in India (CycleTel) Uganda MSI Mobile phone. Kampala – Marie Stopes Uganda (MS Uganda) is working with Google and the Grameen Foundation to provide sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information to people in rural areas of Uganda through a mobile phone network.

The service, which was launched a few weeks ago, is part of a project called the Application Laboratory (AppLab). Five different information applications have been launched under the project, including Google Trader, which matches buyers and sellers of agricultural produce and commodities, and the Clinic Finder Tool, which helps people locate nearby health clinics and their services. To get answers to their SRH questions users send their questions, such as “will implants make me infertile?” By text message to the service number (6001). As one of the leading providers of SRH services in the country, MS Uganda was approached by the Grameen Foundation to write the responses to questions about SRH and provide information for the Clinic Finder Tool.

CycleTel: Family Planning via Mobile Phones | mHealth in Low-Resource Settings. Vodafone mHealth | Home Page - Discover more about mHealth and how Vodafone is leading the thought leadership debate and defining mobile-enabled healthcare delivery. Global aging demographics and a worldwide chronic disease epidemic are driving a vast economic cost burden to healthcare.

This is forcing healthcare providers to find new ways to maintain the current quality of patient care. Moving costs and care away from the hospital and primary care environment, we are providing a modern approach to healthcare through our Remote Care Services solutions. In three core areas, Condition Management, Hospital to Home, and Assisted Living, we are not only addressing productivity and cost challenges, but also enabling improvements in both patient care and quality of life for patients. M2M monitoring and tracking solutions also help to maintain medical and lab equipment more effectively through real-time notification of potential issues. M2M is becoming an integral part of patient care, helping to cut costs as well as save lives. Sensors in the bathroom, by the bed or near the door can collect information without compromising the individual's privacy.

Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA) and BabyCenter Main Page | BabyCenter. AppLab -- an Initiative of the Grameen Foundation [Partnerships] Grameen Foundation | Combining the power of microfinance and technology to defeat global poverty. mHealth: Add Up the Issues in Scale Up | NetHope Solutions Center. InShare1 Blog Author: Kelly Keisling, NetHope Global Healthcare Program Director, kelly.keisling@nethope.org Date: December 5, 2013 Though hundreds of mHealth pilots have been developed, there is not a broad understanding of how to scale up mHealth projects. Scaling up mHealth was addressed by the November 19th meeting of the mHealth Working Group, including presentations on JSI’s cStock project in Malawi and UNICEF’s Programme Mwana in Zambia and Malawi.

Scaling up mHealth for MNCH: Lessons from IWG Catalytic mHealth Grantees and Building Partnerships to Reach Scale are also being discussed at the 2013 mHealth Summit. Scaling up generally means “more.” Strategic Leadership For health services, NGOs and government partners have important roles in scale up. [3] Health organizations should advocate for necessary changes in government policies. Alignment with Health Goals Alignment with Partners Cultural and Institutional Context Simplicity Usability Robustness Flexibility Evaluation Knowledge Sharing. mHealth Alliance. HUB: HealthUnBound | Connecting. Sharing. Transforming. Making mHealth Happen: The e-Launch of mHELP. By Peter Benjamin Following its launch in September, the mHealth Expert Learning Program (mHELP) – the capacity building initiative of the mHealth Alliance – is now ready to support governments, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations around the world in realizing the power of mobile for health systems.

Information, resources and opportunities to connect with the mHELP expert network are now available at the new mHELP website: www.hingx.org/mhelp. mHELP offers assistance with electronic health (eHealth) and mobile health (mHealth) implementations, particularly those focused on improving reproductive health, maternal, newborn and child health, and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. mHELP has established a network of global experts to assist in mHealth planning and projects. If you are attending the 2013 mHealth Summit and would like technical advice or assistance on any area of mHealth or eHealth, let mHELP help! Global Health: Science and Practice. Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine. Ustad Mobile | Smart learning without smart phones. Freedom Fone. Mobile Solutions Forum Asia 2014. 1st VdGM Forum | Registration | The Vasco Da Gama Movement.

How to register ? Fill in the registration form and pay the registration fee either by bank transfer or Paypal. Please be aware that there is a limited number of participants to the Forum. So be quick ! Registrations will be processed on a first-come first-served basis. There are two types of registrations available: General Practitioner / Family Doctor (Trainee, first 5 years, senior)- Please fill this registration form. Bank account: IBAN: BE41731025989810 (Please note that this is a bank account in Belgium and therefore the IBAN consists only of 16 digits.) Vasco da Gama Movement WONCA EUROPE Junior Account (subject/payment details: VdGM Forum: Name+Last Name) Bank address: KBC Bank NV, Havenlaan 2, 1080 Brussels, Belgium Credit cards: We regret that we cannot provide a credit card accepting service presently.

Refunds of the registration fee can be made in the following conditions: - 80% reimbursement till 30th January 2014, no reimbursement thereafter. Go back to Forum main page. mHealth+SocialGood: Envisioning the Future to 2015 and Beyond. By Patty Mechael We are in the midst of a mobile revolution! Mobile phones are creating change in communities throughout the world and, with less than 800 days to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), mobile technologies are playing an increasingly important role in accelerating development efforts. As we reflect on the five years since the mHealth Summit began and the mHealth Alliance was created, I believe few members of the mHealth community would have imagined that the field would come so far in such a short time. The advancements in mHealth over the past years have been remarkable, and now is the time to use this momentum to drive forward towards an even more extraordinary future.

This December, as thousands of experts, innovators, and leaders from government, business, and civil society come together at the fifth annual mHealth Summit, the mHealth Alliance – in partnership with Johnson + Johnson, HIMSS and MAMA – will host mHealth+SocialGood. Indian 7th Annual International Telemedicine Congress 2011.