The WHO survey showed that eight of 10 countries are using mobile phones to support health services. The most frequently reported initiatives were call centres, toll-free phone services, systems for managing emergencies and disasters, and telemedicine interventions.
African mHealth projects cited as promising include an initiative in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Population Services International (PSI) supports a free hotline to back up its family planning campaigns, and a U.S. university-funded program in Ghana which offers free voice and SMS services around health needs.
Read more: Call to Assess Role of Mobile Technology in Health
In a new report, the World Health Organization finds that 83 percent out of 122 countries use mobile technology for health services -- offering patients, for example, free emergency helplines and text message health reminders and test results, plus linking health practitioners in far-flung locales using telemedicine and smartphone apps.
And such mobile health efforts are critical: In Africa in particular, mobile penetration exceeds infrastructure development, such as paved roads and electricity. So connecting with health practitioners via mobile technology is often the only way people can get any care.
It leaves 17 per cent without any service offerings.
Kathy Calvin, CEO of the UN Foundation, which along with the Vodafone Foundation are partners in the report, said: “Wireless technologies have enormous potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health programs as they grow beyond the pilot programs common in most of the world. This report provides the data that can help accelerate the strategic use and evaluation of mobile technologies as mHealth is taken to scale to help meet health needs.”
A survey conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that only 19 of the 114 studied countries have no mobile health initiative, known as “mHealth.” Many of the government adoptions, however, are at the pilot stage.
While eighty-three percent of the studied countries were involved in a minimum of one mHealth project, most of them had several projects running, said Misha Kay, Manager at the Global Observatory for mHealth at WHO.
Yet the report, “mHealth: New Horizons for Health through Mobile Technologies,” written by WHO’s Global Observatory for eHealth, also points out that many of these mHealth activities are in the pilot phase and therefore limited in effectiveness.
“Wireless technologies have enormous potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health programs as they grow beyond the pilot programs common in most of the world,” said Kathy Calvin, CEO of the United Nations Foundation, in a press release. “This report provides the data that can help accelerate the strategic use and evaluation of mobile technologies as mHealth is taken to scale to help meet health needs.”
Read more: Global survey tracks mobile phone use for health activities