mHealth to Save 147,000 Nigerians

Mobile health (mHealth) applications such as text messages could save 147,000 Nigerians lost each year to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), malaria and pregnancy-related conditions, according to new report.

The report released by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) India and commissioned by the GSM Association also drew inputs from the GSMA Connected Living programme , said that mobile phone interventions, all thing being equal with patients’ compliance with treatment, medical stock available and healthcare workers stick to treatment guidelines 3 million lives lost each year across Africa over the next five years.

"Many of the deadly conditions are relatively simple to treat, prevent or contain. SMS reminders to check stock levels at health centres have shown promising results in reducing stock-outs of key combination therapy medication for malaria, TB and HIV"  the report said.

According to PwC, mobile phones could be used for a range of health uses in Africa. Although the reports contained that the continent’s low mHealth adoption rate may be due to health illiteracy among patients, however, there was little evidence that mHealth schemes lead to improved health outcomes.

“Delivering mobile-assisted awareness to pregnant mothers and traditional birth attendants could reduce prenatal and maternal mortality by up to 30 per cent, while programmes that track mobile-usage patterns have been very successful in predicting disease outbreaks and in reporting malaria reporting adherence,” the report said.

 “Africa's low adoption of mHealth solutions is mainly due to a lack of health literacy among patients,” Shashank Tripathi, leader of the strategy and research practice at PwC India and one of the study authors said.

"We believe that, whereas the cost (of mobile phones) may be an issue affecting uptake (of mHealth), a bigger issue is awareness. People who are unaware of the need to consult a health service will not consult it," Tripathi tells SciDev.Net. Consequently, he recommends intensified awareness campaigns.

In Nigeria, the antenatal care application delivered by Pathfinder International and other collaborating agents is currently being used in 20 health facilities in Abuja through the CommCare platform.

More than 150 health workers will use CommCare during antenatal care client sessions. A rigorous research study is ongoing and examines the quality of antenatal care provided by community health workers as well as the perceptions of community health workers on using CommCare and its effect on client interactions.

The results of the study are expected in late 2013.

But the report estimated that the potential number of lives that mHealth initiatives could save in Africa over five years to 2017 differs greatly, from 1,500 in Botswana up to 147,000 in Nigeria.

“Besides differences in mobile phone ownership and use, these variations are also due to differing mortality rates for individual countries,” added Tripathi.

But unlike the report's optimistic outlook, two recent review studies found little evidence that the mHealth initiative actually lead to improved health outcomes in developing countries.

It would be recalled that Pathfinder International in conjunction with Dimagi launched an ehealth scheme called m4Change project in Nigeria with Nassarawa and Abuja as pilot states.

The scheme kicked off in 2012 to improve the quality of services provided by community health workers through the deployment of a mobile phone antenatal care application designed to facilitate more accurate decision-making.

Meanwhile,  Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries spend close to $6 trillion in healthcare costs every year. OECD is an organization that acts as a meeting ground for 34 countries which believe strongly in the free market system.

“On an average, OECD countries spend over 3,200 USD per capita on healthcare, which amounts to 9.6% of the combined OECD GDP. Healthcare spending has consistently outpaced GDP growth rate in most of these nations and is expected to place considerable pressure on public expenditure as the government contributes in excess of 70% of total healthcare spend.

Ericsson Mobility Report, November 2012 estimated that by 2017, 85 % of world’s population will have 3G coverage, and that global data traffic will grow 12-fold by the end of 2018.

And the future demand will only be met by the continued roll-out of standardised mobile networks including the global GSM LTE Mobile Broadband standard.

Without continued investment and growth in mobile networks and the deployment of multiple connected devices, the report continued, the socioeconomic benefits of the connected life will not be fulfilled.

“Beyond connectivity, mobile operators will play a crucial role in working together with a range of industry partners in health, automotive, education, smart cities and a range of vertical industries to accelerate the launch of valuable connected services,” said, Ana Tavares Lattibeaudiere, head of Connected Living, GSMA.

Mobile operators have the opportunity to generate value beyond basic connectivity through managed connectivity, stewardship services and platform innovation.