Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Global foundations support the future of mobile health
The Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations Foundation (UNF), and the Vodaphone Foundation have formed the mHealth Alliance, partnership that will work to maximize the impact of mobile health, especially in the developing world. According to the UNF website, "The idea for the mHealth Alliance emanated from a July 2008 conference on the future of mHealth, held as part of the Making the eHealth Connection: Global Partners, Local Solutions event at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center." (My colleague, Rachel Maguire, ran a session at the Bellagio Conference.)
In the press release announcing the launch of mHealth Alliance, Terry Kramer, a Vodaphone Foundation Trustee, explains the importance of mobile technology in the context of global health:
When you consider that there are 2.2 billion mobile phones in the developing world, 305 million computers but only 11 million hospital beds you can instantly see how mobiles can create effective solutions to address healthcare challenges. Mobile technology is providing new hope in the provision and promotion of quality healthcare in a number of ways, such as accelerating the collection and storage of patient data, training rural professionals and personalizing the way patients receive medical treatment.
Also from the press release: "The mHealth Alliance will encourage the development of scalable, sustainable and open-standard health solutions that can be made widely available through creating partnerships that strengthen the potential of mobile technology." The UNF website states that the Alliance's "initial activity will focus on thought leadership, global advocacy and collaboration, and implementation."
Also being released at the GSMA conference is a new report, mHealth for Development: The Opportunity of Mobile Technology for Healthcare in the Developing World, commissioned by the United Nations and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership. It is the most comprehensive report of its kind, surveying the current Health landscape and highlighting over 50 examples of mHealth projects in developing countries.