Grant funds smartphone management of noncommunicable diseases in resource-limited settings

A grant from the Medtronic Foundation will fund the development, implementation and evaluation of a secure, smartphone-based mobile platform to facilitate the treatment of noncommunicable diseases in resource-limited environments.

The new mobile platform will initially be used by health care workers for home-based and clinic visits, targeted revisits and mobile-based counseling guided by computer-generated alerts. Additionally, it will help provide continuous medical education and mobile tele-consultation services for diabetes and hypertension. The technology will be freely available and integrated into AMRS, the electronic medical record system serving 500,000 individuals within the western Kenya catchment area of the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare, or AMPATH.

"The mHealth applications we develop, which will fall under the umbrella name of mUzima—uzima is Swahili for life—will go a long way in helping realize secure and interoperable mHealth solutions to improve care and strengthen the health care system. We thank Medtronic Foundation for helping lead the effort to improve use of mHealth technologies for noncommunicable diseases in resource-limited settings," said Regenstrief Institute investigator Martin C. Were, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine, who leads the new mobile health project.

Dr. Were is AMPATH's chief medical information officer. He was named one of the mHealth Alliance and Rockefeller Foundation's Top 11 in 2011 mHealth Innovators for his work in mobile technologies for health care workers in resource-limited environments. He is also a Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program Scholar of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Provided by Indiana University