Using Cell Phones To Improve Health Care in Developing Countries
March 10, 2011
Standing, left to right: USM Professor of Computer Science Bruce MacLeod; Brent Atkinson of Hollis, a 2010 graduate of USM’s master’s program in computer science and a software developer in USM Computing Services; and USM graduate student Brian Hartsock of Oakland. Seated, left to right, Matt Blanchette of Scarborough, a 2009 graduate of USM’s master’s program and a USM research assistant; and USM graduate student Dave Roberge of Auburn.
Cell phones have been cited as the cause of everything from auto accidents to the rapid decline in the quality of human interaction.
A University of Southern Maine professor of computer science and his graduate students, however, are using cell phone technology to improve the delivery of health information and health services in developing countries.
USM Professor Bruce MacLeod and his students Brent Atkinson of Hollis and Matt Blanchette of Scarborough are part of an international team developing ways to use cell phones to improve the delivery of health care to pregnant women and their newborns in Ghana.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the project, known as the Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTeCH). The collaborative effort includes faculty of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health; the Grameen Foundation, an organization founded to give the poor access to microfinance and technology; the Ghana Health Service; and USM.
The goal of the project is to configure basic cell phones, which are widespread in low-income countries, so that they can deliver health care-related messages to pregnant women and encourage them to seek care from nearby facilities. Columbia Professor James Phillips, an expert on health systems in Africa and Asia, asked USM’s MacLeod to join the effort. MacLeod, who over the last 30 years has earned an international reputation for design and development of software systems for health research centers in developing countries, took the lead to create software to power the cell phone application.
The system, which is up and running in two impoverished districts of northern Ghana, is delivering tips on preventative care and prenatal care tailored to the individual user. “Registration among villagers is voluntary but reports are that thousands have signed up,” said MacLeod.
“Brent and Matt are top-notch students who were here as undergraduates so I know them well and what they are capable of,” said MacLeod. “Their contributions have been invaluable and I’m very pleased that they have the opportunity to work on a project such as this.” The team is part of USM’s Information and Innovation Center, a university research unit specializing in information science and related areas.
“Right now, there are groups all over the world trying to harness this new technology in order to use it in other underdeveloped countries,” Atkinson said. “It has been a great experience. I am very thankful that Bruce brought it here.”
MacLeod is now working on a project to develop software for a health research center in the Cross River district of Nigeria, the West African nation with one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world.
“The country has limited capabilities to measure population, monitor birth and death rates, and collect health information at the community level” said MacLeod. This data, he added, is needed to measure the burden of disease in rural communities and identify bottlenecks in the delivery of health services.
MacLeod and USM students David Roberge of Auburn and Brian Hartsock of Oakland are working on the project with the Nigerian Ministry of Health and the University of Calabar in Cross River, Nigeria. The project is administered under the International Development Research Centre, a corporation created by the Canadian Parliament to help developing countries use science and technology to address a range of social, economic, and environmental problems.
Specifically, the project team is developing, in MacLeod’s words, “an enterprise-level, software application for maintaining demographic and health characteristics of a population that is monitored over time.” The software will generate statistical analyses of data needed to evaluate and improve health outcomes for mothers and their babies. “If you can’t measure it,” said MacLeod, “how can you be expected to address it?”
A pilot program will be launched this winter in the Nigerian state of Cross River, with full implementation scheduled to be ramped up over the course of 2011.
“This is an unbelievably rich and unusual experience for graduate students,” said Macleod. “David and Brian both earned their undergraduate degrees in our computer science program and now, as graduate students, are among the strongest students we have. “The training they are receiving on this project is world class.”
