Mobile health care
When I first realized that topic for this week's blog postings was mobile technology, I was doubtful that I would find much information regarding mobile technology and cheap cialis care in developing countries of the world. However, upon searching, I found a wealth of information involving the topic, and was surprised to learn about initiatives that are currently being taken in developing countries to help improve cialis care and spread awareness about proper personal and sexual health. This particular blog will be regarding different areas of Africa and the different ideas about improving health care and the spread of information regarding health via mobile technology. All of the information in this blog post has been gathered from a pamphlet published as part of the Access to Communication Publication Series, and is entitled, " Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in Mobile Use by NGOs."
The first area of focus of the publication is in South Africa and involved AIDS and HIV education and treatment and the use of mobile technology to improve both. To begin with, I found it shocking that over 41% of South Africa's population is using mobile technology, and over 90% of the country is covered with a mobile network. This piece of information starts to make it clearer how mobile technology can be used to help spread awareness and assist in the treatment of AIDS and HIV. Those patients in Africa that are lucky enough to receive ART (anti-retroviral treatment) for AIDS or HIV often aren't seen on a regular basis or don't maintain their treatment regimens. Most of the time in South Africa, many treatments go to waste because of lack of patient monitoring and follow-up by the doctors. Especially in rural areas, people have to travel long distances to reach a hospital, and it is often unrealistic or unreasonable to expect this to happen. Cell-life is the company responsible for the "Aftercare" program within South Africa and the program utilized mobile technology to help care for patients and improve patient monitoring. There are house calls made by individuals associated with hospitals, and through the use of mobile technology they are able to input large amounts of information about many patients into a database so that they can then be monitored and treated accordingly. This seems like a great way to keep tabs on patients and to improve the effectiveness and regularity of AIDS and HIV treatments in Africa. With such widening mobile technology use in South Africa, it is essential to utilize the technology in any way possible to help improve health care.
Another important initiative discussed in the publication involves the use of mobile technology to connect health care workers in rural areas with larger databases of medical knowledge and resources. As mentioned in the article, in many rural areas, there is one lone doctor or nurse treating thousands of patients without access to the internet, or even a telephone. The Academy for Educational Development- Satellife, a U.S. based company, has begun to equip medical personnel in rural areas of Uganda with PDA's in order to store information and communicate with health care professionals in more populated areas with better access to medical technology and resources. This is important, and often something that people forget about when considering health care in developing countries. As important as it is to keep the patients informed about their treatments and their health, it is so important to ensure that health care professionals in these areas have access to the information and resources necessary to effectively treat thousands of patients, sometimes completely on their own.
The last area of improvement regarding mobile technology in Africa discussed in the publication involves the areas of Kenya and Zambia. This involves making public health information more readily accessible to health care professionals. The non-profit Data-Dyne group produced a program called EpiSurveyor, which allowed health care professionals to gather time-sensitive information about their patients using mobile technology and this particular software. Like the example above, this initiative is so important in helping health care workers to be more thorough in their treatment of sick individuals and also to be more able to track patients and follow up with treatments given.