Mobile phones used to boost health outcomes in Asia
Updated
A trial is getting under way in India using mobile phone based software intended to broaden the access and quality of healthcare in developing countries.
Presenter:Siobhan Marsh
Speaker: Dr Amarjeet Singh, of the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology. Dr Leo Celi, co-developer of the Sana project; Jose Quesada, Manila-based IT Professor
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MARSH: Sana is a program that connects health workers across a country via mobile phones.
They are linked to both other doctors and an automatic medical database. The aim: To provide 24-hour help for diagnosing and treating any illness a health worker may be confronted with, even reception is poor.
Dr Leo Celi is a co-developer of the Sana project and believes that the software will vastly improve the health care system because it is so easy to use.
CELI: "That doctor can access the data that has just been collected... and that doctor could also review the past medical history of the patient as stored in his history. So that the doctor is able to give his impression of what is going on and give a treatment recommendation... We're also using this system as a way of translating evidence based medicine and making sure that these guidelines that are being published... are actually getting into the hands of community health care workers in the most remote villages."
MARSH: In the Philippines, Manila-based IT Professor, Jose Quesada is sceptical about how successful it will be after seeing Sana's first pilot test in Batanes last July.
Professor Quesada is also Sana's in-country representative.
His major concern is how accurate the information provided by the database will be.
QUESADA: "In terms of the information that the phone can gather and send over the internet, I mean it can send a lot more information now. For me its, its for me still to be proven that the actual information can be used by doctors to create an accurate diagnosis and then send back to the patient or the one, the nurse or the health worker who gathered the information."
MARSH: Dr Amarjeet Singh, of the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology where the trials are being held this week, sees huge potential for the software to create a united health care front in India.
SINGH: "It would be good if we can create a whole community around it which would include doctors, people from public policy, physicians, pharmacists and even the IT professionals who can contribute in developing these applications for efficient delivery of health care."
MARSH: But he too believes there is a lot of room for improvement, especially in cost, so that the software is more appealing to potential partners in rural areas.
SINGH: "We are also trying to modify Sana technology to work on lower end phones, so Nokia phones which are much cheaper than Android phones. So once we have that thing up and working and its robust we can be more convincing to our field partners."
MARSH: Despite all the arguments, Dr Singh is still confident that Sana will eventually be a success.
SINGH: "Once we give more convincing answers people will be more willing to buy into such a platform."
