Technology, humanitarian groups form mHealth Alliance

With mobile phone use spreading rapidly in developing countries, three of the world's leading foundations involved in global health, technology and humanitarian assistance have formed an alliance aimed at using mobile technology to deliver health applications.

The mHealth Alliance, comprising the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and The Vodafone Foundation, debuted at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The three foundations have agreed to form a partnership that will work to maximize the impact of mobile health, especially in the developing world.

"I believe it is critical for us to harness the benefits that mobile technology can bring to global health care, in both sociological and economic terms," said Terry Kramer, a Vodafone Foundation trustee.

"When you consider that there are 2.2 billion mobile phones in the developing world, 305 million computers but only 11 million hospital beds you can instantly see how mobiles can create effective solutions to address health-care challenges," he added. "Mobile technology is providing new hope in the provision and promotion of quality health care in a number of ways; such as accelerating the collection and storage of patient data; training rural professionals and personalizing the way patients receive medical treatment."

The alliance was formed after a July 2008 meeting where participants such as Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm, the Earth Institute, MIT and the UN World Health Organization identified the need to increase collaboration in cross-sector and pan-regional partnerships to improve health care delivery in the developing world.

"Mobile technology can enable significant progress toward reaching the UN Millennium Development Goals relating to health," said Daniel Carucci, vice president for global health at the United Nations Foundation. "The mHealth Alliance will provide a platform to bring the technology and health sectors together to maximize the impact mobile technology can have in improving health across the developing world."

The mHealth Alliance will encourage the development of scalable, sustainable and open-standard health solutions that can be made widely available through creating partnerships that strengthen the potential of mobile technology. It will also support project implementation and commissioning rigorous research on the opportunity for mHealth.

Nokia has conducted research on the role of mobile phones during times of disaster and the results show great impact, said Henry Tirri, senior vice president and head of Nokia Research.

"The role of a mobile phone becomes more important when you have a humanitarian crisis and there are 2 million people wondering what to do. Receiving information via text message can be of great help," said Tirri.

Nokia Research has been working with humanitarian agencies in India and psychiatrists in China to identify ways mobile phones can be used to reach communities better in times of humanitarian crisis.