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WHO releases 2011 Compendium of New and Emerging Health Technologies

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a compendium of innovative technologies that may address global health complexities and improve health outcomes in low-resource settings. It presents a snapshot of technologies, either under development or commercialized, that address specific health problems and offer proposed solutions. Each technology is featured in a one-pager which showcases the product functionality and specifications, developer’s claims of product benefits, usage information, development stage, as well as future work and challenges for the product. According to the WHO, the compendium 2011 aims to raise awareness of the critical need for development and dissemination of novel technology in developing countries.

Technology Under Development…

Assisted vaginal delivery instrument
Blood collection drape estimating postpartum blood loss
Fetal heart rate monitor by mobile phone
Infant warmer
Isolator system for laparoscopic surgery
Lab-in-a-backpack: point of care screening/diagnostic
Low-technology child restraint car seat
Microbial water testing kit
Mobile health record system for pediatric HIV
Mobile phone image transmission for diagnosis
Mobile phone pulse oximeter
Off-grid refrigerator
Orthopaedic external fixator
Pedograph
Point-of-use water purifier
Portable cell sorting and counting device
Portable system for pre-cancer screening at point of care
Portable telemedicine unit
Portable transcutaneous haemoglobin meter
Single-size contraceptive diaphragm
Subcutaneous drug delivery device
Woman’s condom

Commercialized Technology…

Birthing simulator for training
Fetal heart rate monitor
Isothermal nucleic acid amplifi cation system for POC diagnosis
Manual wheelchairs and mobility devices
Medical data communication system
Mobile technology to connect patients to remote doctors
Newborn simulator for resuscitation training
Non-pneumatic anti-shock garment
Oxytocin in prefilled auto-disable injection system
Parasitological test system
Phototherapy for neonatal jaundice treatment
Point-of-use water disinfection system
Portable haemoglobin meter
Portable ventilator
Prefi lled auto-disable injection system
Reusable neonatal suction device
Self-powered pulse oximeter
Solar thermal cooking and autoclave device
Transcutaneous bilirubin measurement system for infants
Treatment response software application
Ventilator using continuous positive airway pressure
Water filter

September 12, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Gamification: The future of mHealth?

Photo Credit: mashable.com

A report that was released at the end of July highlighted the emergence of gamification in mobile services, especially in mHealth. In the report, the term gamification is defined as “the use of gameplay mechanics for non-game applications. The term also suggests the process of using game thinking to solve problems and engage audiences.”

Therefore, in the realm of healthcare, gamification refers to the use of game mechanics or game principles in mHealth applications. In some mHealth circles, a sub field has emerged call health games, which are games that are intended to improve the health of the users. The report suggests that gamification is the future of mobile, web and social media technology.

These gaming apps are designed to alleviate health burdens by promoting healthy behaviors and actions, and educating users on the nature of the burden itself.

For instance, there could be a gaming app on the importance of having an insecticide treated bed net for malaria prevention. The app could educate the user on how malaria is contracted and how to treat it by presenting a series of questions to answer for a prize.

At its most basic level, these apps can reward the user with virtual or actual incentives as they complete certain actions that attenuate a health burden. The incentive encourages the user to perform the action.

A recent Gartner report predicts that by 2015, more than 50% of organizations will gamify their innovation processes. “By 2014, a gamified service for consumer goods marketing and customer retention will become as important as Facebook, eBay or Amazon, and more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application,” says the report.

SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch agrees. “It feels like the next natural evolution of human-technological interaction to me,” he says. As we complete the social layer, we’ll begin construction in earnest on the game layer.”

In the realm of health, gaming apps can be used as tools to encourage a diet plan, educate about a disease, promote drug adherence, and present treatment options. According to experts, one indirect result is that along with promoting certain actions towards improving health, the games may also generate positive attitudes and improve emotional states towards achieving better health.

Photo Credit: texttochange.org

In the developing world, one such app exists called Freedom HIV/AIDS that was implemented in India and Africa. Designed to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, the app offers games themed for its location. For instance, in India, safety cricket, and Quiz with Babu were just some of the games through which HIV/AIDS awareness was promoted.

Text to Change(TTC) is another mobile service that offers gaming apps to its participants. Implemented in Africa, TTC offers quiz games that educate participants about different health burdens. In the end of the quizzes, incentives are provided to the participants. TTC’s services have been popular with UNICEF, WHO, UN and USAID initiatives.

The games are a great way to engage people with health campaigns that may otherwise be neglected due to lack of social interaction. Another report says that gaming apps can help overcome the guilt associating with failing to complete a health program. The report says, “ Games help patients manage that guilt. The game navigates patients through their story of successes and failures until they ultimately become victorious.”

If this is one of the roads that will be embarked by mHealth apps, and mobile apps as a whole, at least it will be a fun one. After all, when was the last time anyone had fun learning about HIV/AIDS or vaccinations?

August 9, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

MediBabble: A free tool no health professional should be without

Dr. Brad Cohn (left) and Dr. Alex Blau (right) Photo Credit: ucsf.edu

An Apple app was released earlier this summer that translates medical history questions from English into other languages. The app, called MediBabble, was designed by doctors Alex Blau and Brad Cohn, a duo of physicians from San Francisco.

The idea for the app sprouted from a 2 a.m. conversation while the two were still in medical school. The conversation stemmed from frustrations over not being able to understand patients that did not speak English, and not having an immediate translating tool to help them out.

“Ninety percent of diagnoses come from the patient’s self-reported medical history, so the ability to communicate is critical,” Blau said. “Time is not an asset doctors or patients have. You need that information when you need it.”

MediBabble is currently being distributed for free on Apple’s iTunes, and has more than 8,000 downloads to date. The app has been lauded by several mHealth entities and has even won a few awards for its benefits to the medical world.

MediBabble was designed for Apple products with touch-screen software, such as the iPhone or iPad. The app allows health care providers to play medical history questions and instructions out loud, so far in five languages, to patients that don’t understand English. Currently, the available languages are Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian and Haitian Creole.

The questions range from basic examination questions such as “Can you tell me your name?” to more specific inquiries like, “Do you get recurring lung infections?” The app has more than 2,500 exam questions in its arsenal to translate.

Photo Credit: itunes.apple.com

MediBabble’s interface is structured on a symptom-based approach already commonly used by medical practitioners worldwide. It starts by gathering information about the current complaint and then proceeds into social, family and medication histories; and a review of systems; all for over sixty common chief complaints across eleven organ systems.

According to Blau and Cohn, no medical translation app existed prior to theirs. Therefore, this is the first of its kind seen anywhere. A key feature is that the internet is not needed for full functionality. Once downloaded, the app can be utilized anywhere, at anytime as long as the mobile device has power.

This tool is currently paying dividends for health professionals in the developed world. However, MediBabble can easily be utilized by health processionals that encounter language barriers working on the ground in developing countries. The fifth language, Haitian Creole, was implemented for the earthquakes that struck Haiti in 2010. Therefore, it had already transcended the domestic boundaries.

After taking a look at its features, one realizes that the app is already acclimated for use in the developing world:

Once downloaded, it does not require an internet connection to deliver its service
it provides detailed examination instructions to the user
it has a self-guided tutorial that can teach someone like a community health worker or volunteer how to use it on the fly
it compensates for the deaf and/or noisy environments by having a mode that enables a full screen display in large letters

Utilizing MediBabble, health professionals from the developed world who go on aid missions around the world will worry less about language barriers. This may decrease the time it takes to examine a patient which means more patients can be examined and treated in the long run. The tool can change the way health workers interact with and treat citizens of the developing world. Therefore, aid agencies and NGO’s that deploy health professionals cannot overlook this tool.

Perhaps it won’t be long until MediBabble is used in the developing world. Blau and Cohn said the next five languages being introduced are German, French, Urdu, Hindi and Arabic. Four of those five tongues are predominantly spoken in certain developing countries.

Furthermore, Blau and Cohn intend to keep their app free. So far they have been able to do it with funding contributions from Apple, Google and Twitter. As long as the app is free, the tool will cost health professionals nothing, making it even more appealing for use in resource poor areas.

August 4, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Millions awarded for maternal health innovations

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. Photo Credit: USAID

The Saving Lives at Birth program held its DevelopmentXChange event last week in Washington DC. The event was hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah and was sponsored by USAID, the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, and The World Bank.

The program called for scholars, researchers, doctors, and entrepreneurs to develop innovative prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in rural, low resources setting around the time of birth. There were over 600 applications from around the world, and 77 finalists were chosen to attend this 3-day event held in Washington. At the end of the 3-day event, $14 million in grants were awarded to 25 of the 77 finalists.

The 77 ideas and projects fell into two categories: seed grant finalists and transition to scale finalists. The former were completely innovative and fresh ideas while the latter were already existing ideas that were calibrated to fit for maternal health purposes.

The projects and ideas highlighted gadgets, treatment schemes, prevention methods, health centers, strategic plans and a plethora of mobile phone related solutions. Finalists came from all over the United States and from over the world including Bangladesh, Kenya, India, Uganda, Pakistan, Switzerland and Australia.

Some of the 25 award nominees. Photo Credit: USAID

Many of the ideas that had mobile solution components used mobile phones as an ICT. One innovative project was from Kenya called mAfya which aimed to set up health specific kiosks that would offer basic medical services for free for maternal health issues. There was another project from Kenya that aimed to provide pregnant mothers vouchers to use towards health services through mBanking called Changamka.

Among the awardees, one project from Save the Children provided a mobile phone monitoring system for recording maternal and neonatal deaths. This, along with an electricity-free fetal heart rate monitoring component aims to give communities in Uganda better intra-partum response services. Another project originated from Healthpoint services in India that has already set up rural health clinics and provides water, and is looking to expand its maternal health services using an integrated telemedicine and mHealth system.

Saving Lives at Birth, the first program in a series of Grand Challenges for Development led by USAID. The Grand Challenges is an attempt to bring science, technology and innovation to the field of development, lowering the cost of helping the world’s poor and, in the process, saving lives, said USAID administrator Shah.

“Especially in these very difficult economic times … coming up with more innovative, more local and sustainable ways to make it cheaper and easier to help mothers survive child birth and help children survive the first 48 hours of life is what this program is all about,” added Shah.

Maternal and child health issues still need a lot of attention. A woman dies every two minutes in childbirth, and 99% of the deaths are in the developing world, according to the World Health Organization. Also, about 1.6 million neonatal deaths occur each year around the world. Additionally noteworthy is that only a handful of countries are set to meet Millennium Development Goal 5 of reducing maternal mortality by 2/3 by 2015.

August 1, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Humanitarian Assistance, Infectious Diseases, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Tweets track down dengue fever in Brazil

Photo Credit: chinaview.cn

A research group led by scientists in Brazil has developed software that tracks outbreaks of dengue fever using the social media outlet twitter. This software was created thanks to coordination between two Brazilian National Institutes of Science and Technology, led by Wagner Meira, a computer scientist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

The software is designed to detect the word “dengue” in tweets and information about the sender’s location. The software analyzes the sentence structure and wording to determine if tweets are appropriate for dengue surveillance. Tweets that are deemed spurious or unrelated to dengue fever are filtered out.

During the testing phase, the researchers examined 2,447 tweets about dengue fever sent through the social networking portal between January and May 2009. They found a strong correlation between personal experience tweets about dengue and official data on outbreaks from the Brazilian Ministry of Health.

The research team now plans to analyze 181,845 tweets sent between December 2010 and April 2011, but are waiting for the ministry’s 2011 data before they do so. They also plan to incorporate other key words, mostly symptoms of dengue fever, into their detection scheme to gather more tweets.

Photo Credit: Twitter

This is the first time social media has been used for dengue fever surveillance, but it is not the first time social media has been used for real-time epidemic surveillance. Twitter was used to follow the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Furthermore, it is the first attempt to gather information on people tweeting about their personal experience of a disease.

Google also introduced Google Dengue Trends last month, which records spikes in web searches for dengue fever. Therefore, using social media for surveillance is not a new practice, and nor is tracking dengue using technology. However, Meira’s method is an innovative and efficient way to track dengue fever.

Dengue fever, which can cause hemorrhagic deaths, plagues Brazil ever year. Moreover, every year it emerges in different locations than before. Most Brazilians know how to control and even eradicate the disease, but the majority of citizens don’t take any precautions against it.

On top of that, outbreak notifications take several weeks to process and analyze which impedes officials from assisting citizens. Using Twitter messages could mean a much faster response, says Meira. “It isn’t predicting the future but the present,” he says. “This means we aren’t weeks behind like we used to be.”

July 25, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How is coordination possible in mHealth? Experts gather and discuss

The mHealth Working Group, a collaborative forum created in 2009 by K4Health, held a meeting yesterday that focused on the “Coordination of mHealth projects within and between organizations in the field.” The meeting brought together many experts from the field of mHealth in a meeting that was ripe with rich discussion and promising potential going forward in the field.

Representatives at the meeting came from a number of organizations including USAID, K4Health, John Snow Inc. (JSI), mHealth Alliance, and the UN foundation, just to name a few. Therefore, the meeting focused on mHealth implementation in the developing world rather than here at home where mHealth is much more sophisticated.

The overarching theme for the meeting was examining how to promote coordination amongst organizations that are active in mHealth. This is an important issue because of the lack of large scale mHealth efforts programs in the developing world and the dire lack of monitoring in existing mHealth programs.

The discussion began with the current status and perception of mHealth programs in the developing world. Michael Frost, an official from JSI, stated that mHealth is “exploding with a lot of new interest” but “needs to mature a little bit.” He also echoed claims found in the latest mHealth report, that “projects have a narrow focus, and they don’t have strong evaluation principles.”

Photo Credit: USAID

John Novak from USAID discussed the importance of external collaboration and USAID’s current efforts in structuring their standards for doing so. One of his take home messages here was that all parties involved with implementing mHealth projects, including the country government, ministry of Health, telecoms, NGO’s and medical professionals on the ground need to convene and join hands before implementing a project. One suggested way to accomplish this is creating “coordination groups” at the international and country levels that serve to bring the relevant players to the table.

Discussions about the mHealth Summit that took place early last month in Cape Town also surfaced. One presenter mentioned a case study in Bangladesh that highlighted the fruitful impact of government taking control of the telecom industry to implement mHealth initiatives at no cost to citizens. The presenter expressed that governments need to take more active roles in coordinating programs; it is an effective way to get programs rolled out.

Photo Credit: Hub

The meeting produced more than lectures and discussions. Two mHealth resources were presented that are designed to make the process of collaboration and coordinating easier. Frost from JSI discussed their mHealth center whose primary roles are to create mHealth initiatives and assist existing ones by improving communication and information sharing methods within them. The mHealth alliance introduced a new knowledge resource website called Health Unbound (Hub) that aims to bring different stakeholders together to share, collect and produce information on the intersection of technology and health. Hub is planned to be unveiled to the public in about a month.

The core discussion never strayed away from the importance of coordination amongst organizations involved with mHealth initiatives. Nearly everyone seemed to agree that coordination in vital, and all parties involved in the process of creating mHealth programs must be represented in the planning process.

So the next question to ask is, how do you manage to get everyone to the table given each country has a distinct political and economic climate? How do you mediate between governments that want power, telecoms that want money and NGO’s that have ambitious goals? The answer, I learned, is multifaceted. Nonetheless I will attempt to discuss them over the next few posts with the information provided at the meeting. And even better, the answers will continue to be discussed over the next round of mHealth Working Group meetings.

July 21, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICT’s in Health: A Crash Course

The world of ICT is expanding into the health sector, and their interactions are garnering more and more attention by the day. Therefore, we must be mindful of the beginnings and demarcations of ICT usage in health. After all, we can’t know where we are going unless we know where we came from.

Current ICT for health news in the developing world is dominated by initiatives using mobile telephony; the bread and butter of mHealth. This is not a total shock since over 85% of the world now has mobile coverage. Moreover, there are over 5 billion people on Earth with a mobile phone, and 3.5 billion of them are in developing countries. As a result, mHealth initiatives are booming in developing countries, especially in Africa and South Asia.

But what about other forms of ICTs that play a role in healthcare? What are they and how do they work? This crash course on the intersection between ICT and Health will explore the different avenues within that intersection and how to distinguish them from one another to prevent confusion.

Avenues of ICT and Health

Avenues are the different types of structured practices that implement ICTs in the health field. An avenue in the intersection of ICT and health will utilize old technologies, new technologies or a convergence of both in a structured and systematic way to achieve positive health outcomes. These are the different avenues:

eHealth: The term eHealth refers to the practice of using and being supported by electronics in healthcare. eHealth is the umbrella concept for many other avenues of ICT and health such as telemedicine and mHealth. The term is interchangeably used with health informatics by some experts. The term characterizes a way of thinking, an attitude, and a commitment for networked, global thinking, to improve health care locally, regionally, and worldwide by using information and communication technology. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), eHealth is the quintessential embodiment of the intersection of ICTs and health. Electronic health record systems, health information systems, mHealth and telemedicine all fall under the jurisdiction of eHealth.

Telemedicine: Technically, telemedicine has been around for decades, ever since doctors on one end of the phone have consulted patients on the other end of the phone. It pertains to providing remote clinical care through forms of telecommunication and information technologies. What distinguishes telemedicine from telehealth, since they are sometimes incorrectly used interchangeably, is that the former delivers clinical care while the latter offers clinical and non-clinical care such as health research and education. Telemedicine services include live patient consultation over phone or video, remote patient monitoring, medical and health information acquisition, and emergency telemedicine.

mHealth: Also called mobile health, mHealth is a form of eHealth that uses mobile devices such as mobile phones and PDA’s for health services. The Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) defined mHealth as medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices. mHealth capitalizes on mobile telecommunication services such as SMS, general packet radio service (GPRS), third and fourth generation mobile telecommunications (3G and 4G systems), global positioning system (GPS), and Bluetooth technology.

Health Informatics: This is the field that aims to analyze the information needs of consumers, implement ways to disperse information to consumers and health professionals, and integrate consumer preferences into medical information systems. The field uses devices, resources and methods to store, obtain, retrieve, and disseminate information for healthcare purposes. Health informatics mostly uses computers but also takes advantage of clinical guidelines, advanced medical devices, and ICT services.

July 19, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mapping for Informed Decision Making in Rwanda

Mapping and Geographic Information System (GIS) have long been used in Rwanda for sectors such as agriculture and economic growth. The need for these innovative tools and skills, however, are just now being recognized in other fields, including health. As a monitoring and evaluation expert, I have seen how useful geography and maps can be to monitor and improve programs, and I was interested to learn more about how they were being used and enhanced in the field.

For four days, I joined 18 public health professionals at a GIS training in Kigali, Rwanda, organized by MEASURE Evaluation and Monitoring and Evaluation Management Systems (MEMS) and supported by USAID in collaboration with National AIDS Control Commission (CNLS ). The participants represented many local Rwandan organizations such as MEMS, the Ministry of Health, the Center for Treatment and Research on AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis and Other Epidemics (TRAC Plus), and National University of Rwanda’s School of Public Health.

Andrew Inglis and training participants use qGIS and local data to produce maps that can be used for monitoring HIV programs.

GIS is a unique tool that allows people to interact with their data. Rather than comparing data in charts or graphs, mapping data through geography allows data users to identify essential trends and associations that may not be apparent in other formats. By building local capacity in GIS, we are expanding “evidence-based decision making” for high quality and strategic health programs.

There was a lot of enthusiasm during the training about GIS. The training provided an excellent forum for the participants to talk about innovative ways they are already using the GIS tool. Participants discussed plans to create new programs that would allow for better ownership and monitoring, to improve supply chain management, and to integrate services, all things that will support and enhance the projects that USAID and its partners are implementing.

MEASURE Evaluation trainers, Andrew Inglis and Clara Burgert, introduced the concept of GIS maps and their ability to link to a database that is capable of capturing, storing, querying, analyzing, displaying and outputting data. In addition to teaching concepts such as how to interpret maps and how to effectively use spatial data, the training provided participants an excellent opportunity to gain practical experience.

Prior to the training, data was collected from each of the representing organizations so they could to make a map during the training and present to the group. All the participants also left with qGIS, an excellent free mapping tool, giving them something to work with as they began to hone their new skills and build their organizational capacity.

Andrew Inglis is a firm believer building capacity through the use of geographic and spatial data for program planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and advocacy. He explained, “The goal of capacity building is to turn potential into reality. During the January 2011 stakeholders meeting the potential value of GIS towards evaluation of HIV prevention programs were recognized, however, the lack of capacity within the national institutions is a major barrier. The aim of the capacity building is to start to realize this potential and reduce the capacity barrier to the use of GIS within national institutions.”

After the training, MEASURE Evaluation wrapped up the week with an Open Forum, hosted by the CNLS, inviting participants and other stakeholders to discuss how best to put these newly acquired skills to use. The goal was to create linkages between the HIV/AIDS and health sectors (and other related sectors) and to promote the sharing and use of data linked to geography in Rwanda. It was energizing to be there, discussing with Rwandan colleagues how they can use GIS and mapping tools to connect better with each other, improve the way they plan, implement and monitor health services, and ultimately improve the health outcomes in their country.

As Solomon Kununka, Management Information Systems Specialist from MEMS, put it, “This has initiated me into the GIS community. Now I want even more training. But, I have the basics. I can make maps for my supervisor and me, to be used for decision making.”

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Delivering babies in Ghana just got a little easier

Pregnant woman on phone. Photo Credit: MOTECH

A new mobile phone service was recently launched in Ghana that provides free access to health information in ensuring safe pregnancies. The service, aptly named Mobile Midwife, offers text or voice messaging on maternal health to pregnant women.

Mobile Midwife was developed as part of the U.S. based Grameen Foundation’s MOTECH Ghana initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is just one more result of rising donor attention to mHealth services. Its creation continues a trend of mHealth initiatives being churned out in Africa.

Educating women and making them aware of the maternal health risks associated with pregnancies are the cornerstone goals of the service. To make it convenient for the user, the service comes in several different languages, and is presented by text or voice via mobile phones. Additionally, the messages are time specific concurring with the woman’s stage of pregnancy.

When a pregnant woman registers for the service, they are asked to give the expected due date for delivery of the unborn child and their location. Then, periodically, the woman receives messages informing when appointments are due or overdue to remind them to visit the health clinic for check-ups.

The users also get reminders for specific treatments, information about milestones in fetal development, nutrition facts, tips on the benefits of breastfeeding and other pregnancy-related and prenatal health information. It also provides information that demystifies local pregnancy myths and helps users overcome the widespread fear of visiting doctors or health clinics.

MOTECH also rolled out a similar mobile health service earlier in the year that enables nurses in rural Ghanaian health facilities to automate much of their record keeping and reporting, which formerly took 4-6 days per month. The service is in the form of a java–based mobile phone application.

Both Mobile Midwife and the application mentioned above have made life easier for everyone involved in the process of delivering a baby.

One Ghanaian mother said to Grameen, “I would like to advise my pregnant friends to go to the hospital to enroll into MOTECH, to listen to the messages and also to practice what is said because it helps a lot…I used to be scared about pregnancy but now with the messages I am no longer scared and it has taken away my worries and that we feel ok and then the pregnancy is ok.”

This service is extremely pertinent since Africa exhibits some of the worst maternal health records in the world. Fourteen of the fifteen countries with the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world are in Africa. Furthermore, African countries are far behind in meeting Millennium Development Goals set for 2015; especially for those associated with maternal health. Perhaps services like this can lend a helping hand.

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

MIT researchers link camera technology to healthcare

MIT researchers recently created a smartphone device designed to detect cataracts. Called Catra, the device uses “off -the-shelf components” as opposed to the highly expensive and highly space consuming technologies normally used to detect cataracts.

Using Catra device on smartphone. Photo Credit: EyeCatra

The research group is part of the MIT media lab that won the MIT Global Challenge competition back in May. Taking advantage of mobility through mobile phones and an inexpensive design, Catra was designed for use in the developing world.

The device, which attaches to the screen of a smartphone, costs about $2, whereas a slit lamp examination conventionally used to examine cataracts cost up to $5,000. And unlike conventional slit lamp examinations, Catra does not need a skilled human operator to administer the test and read the results, Catra does everything for the patient.

Catra utilizes a technique, which allows the user to respond to what they visually experience. It scans the lens of the eye section by section. The user then sees projected patterns and presses a few buttons to map the light attenuation in each section of the eye. This information is collected by the device creating an attenuation map of the entire lens. This allows individuals to monitor the progression of the severity of the cataract on their phones.

Catra vs. Slit Lamp technology. Photo Credit: MIT

This is not the MIT media lab’s first project to improve the health of the eye. They are working on a series of projects involving eye care. They developed and released Netra, an application and smartphone attachment for eye exams via mobile phone, last year.

Cataract is a condition where clouding builds up in the lens of the eye. It is the leading cause of avoidable blindness worldwide. Furthermore, ophthalmologists, doctors that specialize on the eye, are scarce in the developing world with one ophthalmologist per million people in some areas. When cataract leads to vision loss, it prevents people from being productive citizens in their community. It leads to high levels of illiteracy and poverty, and can impair a society’s economic and health sectors.

Using mHealth to tackle cataract is a crucial development. However, smartphones are not ubiquitous in the developing world. And it’s for a reason. Even though the Catra device may be cheap, the phones on which they operate are much more expensive. This needs to be considered when implementing Catra on a wide scale in the field. However, with the potential of this kind of technology, it is likely that MIT media lab will find a way.

July 14, 2011/by actualize

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