March 30, 2009
Free text messages save lives in Malawi
A simple SMS system is revolutionizing medical care in Malawi, where scarce resources and a skeleton hospital staff must serve thousands of people spread over hundred of square miles. The Guardian reports.
Josh Nesbit, an undergraduate at Stanford University in California teamed up with Ken Banks, the founder of Cambridge-based FrontlineSMS – free text message software aimed at charities and NGOs – and created FrontlineSMS:Medic
Community health workers, most of whom had never seen a mobile phone, let alone owned one, were trained to send text messages containing medical information back to the hospital staff.
If health workers sent a drug name in a text, the system would automatically respond with information on dosages and usage. Health workers can also give status updates on particular patients or make a call for further medical information to help them treat cases on the go. It is particularly important in a country where HIV and Aids are rife – with infection rates as high as 70% in some areas.
The pilot project, which has been running for five months, has already had a significant impact: as well as getting emergency medical attention for 130 people who would have otherwise gone unseen, it has allowed the hospital's tuberculosis officer to treat twice as many people because his time can now be more used more efficiently.
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