PEPFAR’S Phones for Health initiative works to develop ICT and mobile technology solutions to health groups and government actors working on public health challenges. Mobile phone technology can enable great advances in dealing with health challenges by improving data sharing and making information easily and readily available to program managers and health care service providing working and living in remote locations.

Motorola, one of the partners in the Phones for Health initiative, provide phones equipped with an application that can send information about patients gathered in the field back to a central database through general packet radio services (GPRS) or through SMS. The SMS service also supports an alerts and notifications system that people in the field can send back out to the central database. From here, an analysis and mapping system makes the information available in an internet database. Through the use of ICT and mobile technologies, these changes facilitate a two-way exchange of information and best practices that ultimately improve programs and networks at the local, regional, and national level.

"Phones for Health - using mobile phones to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa: Phones for Health will allow health workers in the field to use a standard Motorola handset equipped with a downloadable application to enter health data. Once entered, the data is transferred via a packet based mobile connection (GPRS) into a central database. If GPRS isn't available, the software can use a SMS data channel to transmit the information. The data is then mapped and analyzed by the system, and is immediately available to health authorities at multiple levels via the web. The system also supports SMS alerting and other tools for communication with field staff.

Rapid and accurate communications channels are crucial to tackling the many health problems faced by African countries and other parts of the developing world," said Rob Conway, Chief Executive of the GSM Association. "The roll out of this health management software in Africa will clearly demonstrate how governments can exploit the expanding mobile infrastructure to enhance the well-being of their citizens."

--Read more at mobiletechnews.com