MobiHealth: Developing Health Service Networks through Mobile Solutions in Low Resource Settings

The international consortium behind MobiHealth is cross disciplinary (informatics, medicine, public health) comprising researchers, users, as well as providers of health infrastructure and information systems. MobiHealth builds on previous NRC projects such as Global health e-infrastructures: integration and use of information? (Verdikt) and Integrated Health Information Systems (HIS) for vaccination in developing countries? (GlobVac). In turn, these projects build upon the Health Information Systems Program (HISP), initiated as a NORAD project (1995-98) in South Africa, and now responsible for the development of the pioneering open source based District Health Information Software (DHIS2.org). DHIS2 is now impelemented i over 27 countries in Africa, Asia and recently Latin America. The MobiHealth project seeks to seamlessly integrate the mobile phone with the DHIS, thus making the health information infrastructure more robust for rural areas in the developing countries where HISP is currently active. MobiHealth develops generic software based on the open source philosophy catering for the various infrastuctures (mobile networks, price plans, access to mobile handsets) in the differentcountries. The suite of health applications that are piloted on the mobile phones in the different countries include: Individual based health program tracking, reporting of aggregated data e.g. Integrated Disease Surveillance and Reporting for outbreak control. These two types of applications shall result in generic software on a mobile platform that can support different reporting needs from different health programs, with the ability to automatically generate aggregated data to the national health management information system (DHIS). The DHIS-Mobile solution for facility reporting of outreach services has been implemented state-wide in Punjab (India) with the utilization of about 5000 handsets. The solution is currently being scaled to other states and other nations, while the generic open source solution is also being expanded to include new features (i.e. vital events, disease surveillance, beneficiary tracking).The project has established a global development team to be responsible for the suit of solutions, as well as coordination with local national nodes in Vietnam, Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, India, Uganda, Zambia and Norway. In these countries the new features are tested out in pilot. The project has received media attention in both radio and press 1 PhD student has defended his thesis within the project and 3 more will defend their thesis spring 2015.

MobiHealth extends the vision of health services information infrastructure to the villages drawing upon the potential of mobile IT solutions. The international consortium behind MobiHealth is cross disciplinary (informatics, medicine, public health) comp rising researchers, users, as well as providers of health infrastructure and information systems. Using action research, the project develops new knowledge on how to build sustainable health service networks in low recourse settings. Health service net works refers to the multitude of vertical and horizontal ties between health workers, possibly also clients, in low-resource environments. Given the existing insufficient support of such networks, it is relevant to investigate to what extent and in which ways that health service networks can be enhanced through the use of mobile technology. In particular, we want to explore how to strengthen the social network's capacity for knowledge creation and sharing. A key focus in the project is to understand the potentials and challenges for the community health workers to use mobile phones to support their information needs and their communication processes. This knowledge will be built empirically by developing, implementing and evaluating pilots on mobile app lications in one district in India, Malawi, Nigeria and Vietnam. We aim at develop generic software on a mobile platform that can support different reporting needs from various health programs.