Who would think that texting could save peoples' lives? Mobile phone technology is being used by healthcare workers to save lives in Africa. There have been reports and studies from the first scientific trial on the link between mobile phones and HIV treatment outcomes - that were conducted in Kenya by scientists from Kenya, Canada, and the United States .
There has not been much "field data" about the use of mobile health technologies to improve patients' health in developing countries - and there are not any published clinical trials.
The
trial was conducted on HIV patients, mostly those who live in remote areas and were receiving treatment in three clinics in Kenya. Patients are receiving a weekly text message in Swahili, which is their local language, from a nurse asking about how they are feeling. Patients were then expected to respond within 48 hours after receiving the text message.
If there is no response from the patient, a healthcare worker would call to ask about was wrong and, if needed, visited them. Patients in the control group received standard care without any text messaging.
The study that was conducted in May 2007 to October 2008, showed that nearly 63 % of mobile phone users reported treatment suppprt compared to the 50% in the control group. It may not seem like a huge difference, but 13% does matter.
A scale up of the program in Kenya could suppress viral loads in 26,000 extra people at the cost of less than US$8 per person per year, said Richard Lester, of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and one of the researchers in the Nairobi trial, however, it needs a formal, cost-effectiveness plan first.
Lester reported to SciDev.net "We have also developed some innovative business models to strategise scaling up the [Kenyan] programme nationally and regionally," he told SciDev.Net. "This may have huge implications for global HIV control since it may be a cost effective way to strengthen health systems for Millennium Development Goals." This was interesting to me because on a global scale, we really do take technology for granted. We take our cell phones out to text our friends that we saw someone wearing the same shirt as us, whereas these people in underdeveloped countries are using it for emergencies. Technology is seen as a privilege, not for entertainment.
There has not been much "field data" about the use of mobile health technologies to improve patients' health in developing countries - and there are not any published clinical trials.
The
trial was conducted on HIV patients, mostly those who live in remote areas and were receiving treatment in three clinics in Kenya. Patients are receiving a weekly text message in Swahili, which is their local language, from a nurse asking about how they are feeling. Patients were then expected to respond within 48 hours after receiving the text message.If there is no response from the patient, a healthcare worker would call to ask about was wrong and, if needed, visited them. Patients in the control group received standard care without any text messaging.
The study that was conducted in May 2007 to October 2008, showed that nearly 63 % of mobile phone users reported treatment suppprt compared to the 50% in the control group. It may not seem like a huge difference, but 13% does matter.
A scale up of the program in Kenya could suppress viral loads in 26,000 extra people at the cost of less than US$8 per person per year, said Richard Lester, of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and one of the researchers in the Nairobi trial, however, it needs a formal, cost-effectiveness plan first.
Lester reported to SciDev.net "We have also developed some innovative business models to strategise scaling up the [Kenyan] programme nationally and regionally," he told SciDev.Net. "This may have huge implications for global HIV control since it may be a cost effective way to strengthen health systems for Millennium Development Goals." This was interesting to me because on a global scale, we really do take technology for granted. We take our cell phones out to text our friends that we saw someone wearing the same shirt as us, whereas these people in underdeveloped countries are using it for emergencies. Technology is seen as a privilege, not for entertainment.
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