In Africa, where high levels of disease threaten to engulf the continent, the medical profession has to get creative – and mobile health (m-health) initiatives are paving the way.
This is according to Dr Sam Surka, researcher from the Chronic Disease Initiative for Africa (CDIA), who says cell phone-based m-health is showing that an answer to Africa’s medical needs may come from this source.
Africa has one of the highest HIV/AIDs rate in the world, and an increasing incidence of chronic and non-communicable disease and the associated risk factors.
Poor living conditions, over-populated living areas, lack of education and inaccessibility to medical information make this situation incredibly hard to manage. Africa carries more than 24% of the global burden of disease but has an average of only two doctors per 10 000 people.
“Healthcare has always been a huge concern in Africa, especially when doctors and hospitals are far from isolated or remote areas where care is often most needed: m-health is potentially the answer to this,” says Surka.
The m-health applications already available offer a wide range of services across the medical spectrum, contributing to a variety of responses to medical needs and conditions, in many cases opening new areas of preventative action impossible before.
Surka is currently working on a first-time project for the CDIA to develop a mobile phone application that calculates a total cardiovascular disease risk score and to investigate how this impacts on screening for cardiovascular disease by community health workers.
“While much has been made of the mobile revolution in North America and its impact on the health sector, m-health is even more important in developing countries where phones are sometimes the only way for people to share and receive information. Through m-health projects, we at the CDIA hope to contribute to bringing its potential to light,” says Surka.
Mobile penetration in Africa is at 65%, the second biggest mobile market in the world, with half of all internet connections in Africa exclusively on mobile technology. South Africa has the second highest smartphone penetration on the continent at 19%, after Egypt at 37%.
This accessibility means big things for healthcare – cell phones enable education that is more effective and targeted.
“M-health is very much a needs-based innovation. While first world countries are leading in the medical technological sphere, there is certainly a gap between international thinking, and what is actually needed on the receiving end. M-health gives us the ability to ensure we’re addressing actual needs,” says Surka.
Primarily, this is done through the collection of data: the most important feature of mobile phone medical applications is that they are patient-focused; the patient is the one engaging. And through the data that the patient supplies, it is possible to see what areas are most in need of support, and for healthcare providers to respond accordingly.
“Importantly, mobile health offers a necessary change to the status quo – for too long the medical sector has been at efforts to switch from doctor centric, to patient-focused care. For the last 50 years this has been happening, and the advent of cell phone tech allows this to an even greater degree,” says Surka.