mHealth
The Development Fund’s mHealth initiative aims to accelerate the creation and deployment of viable mobile health solutions that improve access to appropriate, necessary and quality health services in developing markets.
Through the initiative, the Development Fund is exploring opportunities for the mobile operator community to engage in commercially viable and socially responsible projects. The market for mHealth has yet to be clearly defined and the Development Fund is looking across the health value chain to support sustainable projects that combine public and private sector efforts at public health interventions.
To date, the Development Fund has supported three mHealth initiatives in Africa, Pakistan and Egypt and anticipates further mHealth engagements throughout the developing world as appropriate.
A number of mobile operators and equipment and technology vendors are currently active in this arena and the following gives an indication of some of the work that is already going on:
- Supporting community health workers in gathering and managing health information
- Capturing and analysing data for disease surveillance
- Providing remote diagnoses via telemedicine
- Improving access to health information and resources through health hotlines
- Facilitating health education, training and emergency support
- Coordinating drug and medical supply distribution
- Enhancing rapid disease testing via mobile phone microscopy applications
