Table 1 Different applications of mHealth in community-based health care settings
mHealth applications | Examples |
|---|---|
Data collection | · Electronic tools for data collection and rapid access to data for purposes of research and disease surveillance. |
Management | · Management of health information for planning, monitoring, evaluation and supervision of workers and service delivery. |
|  | · Administrative help with data collection and rapid reporting. |
|  | · Facilitating communication amongst community health workers (CHWs) and between CHWs and supervisors. |
|  | · Improving administrative systems, for example, for human resource, financial and supply chain management. |
Clinical service delivery | · Providing support for health workers at point of care for diagnosis and treatment, via job aids and decision-making tools in the form of electronic guidelines, algorithms and referral mechanisms. |
|  | · Patient electronic health records that can be accessed by both community and facility-based health personnel. |
|  | · Patient access to medication via electronic prescribing system. |
Health promotion activities | · Health promotion messaging via mobile phones directly to patients to increase health awareness, support treatment adherence or promote access to health services. |
|  | · Audiovisual applications available on mobile phones to use as a job aid for CHWs. |
|  | · Support for scheduling of home visits and targeted advice. |
Education and training | · Training personnel via distance learning opportunities. |
|  | · Evaluation of the impact of the education through distance quizzes. |
|  | · Ongoing training through regular electronic updates and access to reference material. |