TeleomPk has been providing coverage of Telehealth or mobile health work in Asia. This post is a summary of the various efforts going on but of course, its not comprehensive. It would be great to have a national website where doctors, scientist, technologists, social workers and other stakeholders can discuss, share and publish their work.

Let’s start with research at the Next Generation Intelligent Networks Research Center of FAST University, Islamabad. Their work on Remote Patient Monitoring System with Focus on Antenatal Care (see past post) is funded by the National ICT R&D fund, Government of Pakistan, over the period of 3 years (2008-2010). The primary objective of this project is to develop a reliable, efficient and easily deployable remote patient monitoring system that can play a vital role in providing basic health services to the remote village population of Pakistan at their door step.

There’s more innovative work in this area by other groups as well. In this interview, Jehan Ara talks with a Pakistani researcher Jahanzeb Sherwani (prior coverage here) who has done doctoral level research at CMU about using speech recognition with local languages to collect information regarding rural health care. In this interview he talks about expanding the work out of the labs and to include more local languages. Excerpt from a post by Jehan Ara.

Jahanzeb has been more excited about the HealthLine PhD project that he has been working on with Hands, an NGO. Speech recognition is, he believes, the equalizer, the ultimate enabler. It doesn’t matter if you are illiterate or if you speak a different language.

LIRNEAsia also publishes work on m-health topic quite often. Much of their work looks at running surveys and working with local communities to gather data and to test out the technologies. They also work with Carnegie Mellon university on Bio-surveillance work.

Of course when it comes to developed countries there’s a lot of emphasis on reducing cost and for providing connected services whereby automation and intelligence can make devices and testing smart. Here’s ATT vision for medical remote monitoring (source: Fast Company). A number of other companies are active in this area. There’s also interest in providing monitoring and emergency services for senior citizens.

Lirneasia also publishes work on m-health topic quite often. Much of their work looks at running surveys and working with local communities to gather data and to test out the technologies. They also work with Carnegie Mellon university on Bio-surveillance work.

Please suggest any other sources which you think should be covered. Here’s another report from Africa about health care improvement.

Cell phones may have changed the way people communicate in the developed world, but in developing countries they’re going far beyond simple communication to bring new opportunities to areas that sorely need them. Case in point: FrontlineSMS:Medic, a new initiative to improve health care in poor, rural villages.

Due to a global shortage of some 4.4 million healthcare professionals, as estimated by the World Health Organization, many rural health centers in poor regions depend largely on community health workers who travel among clinics and villages. Such health workers typically record patient interactions on paper and then bring those records to a central clinic for further instruction. Many travel on foot, however, and—because they serve such large areas—often don’t get back to the clinic more than once a month. The result: some patients remain untreated for far too long.

Launched in February, FrontlineSMS:Medic aims to improve matters using FrontlineSMS, a free, open-source software program that enables large-scale, two-way text messaging using only a laptop, a GSM modem and cell phones. Working with donations collected through Hope Phones, the initiative places a laptop running FrontlineSMS in a central clinic and then distributes cell phones to community health workers. Workers are trained in sending text messages to hospital staff to request drug dosing information or treatment instruction, for example, or provide status updates on a particular patient. Modified camera phones, meanwhile, can be used to analyze blood and sputum samples and perform critical diagnostics for conditions including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. In a recent, 6-month pilot test of the system at a hospital in Malawi, 150 patients received emergency care, community health workers saved 1,000 hours of travel time—allowing them to visit more patients—the number of people being treated for tuberculosis doubled, and the hospital saved USD 3,500 worth of fuel, freeing up funds to purchase more medication. Operating the system, meanwhile, requires an investment of just USD 500, according to an article in the Guardian.

Since the Malawi pilot, California-based FrontlineSMS:Medic has launched numerous other projects throughout Africa and beyond through partnerships with global health organizations.