UPM-NTHC hosts mHealth Roundtable Discussion

November 27, 2010 8:19 am | by Pura Angela Wee, MD | Posted in News

The University of the Philippines Manila-National Telehealth Center (UPM-NTHC) hosted a roundtable discussion on mobile health last November 26, 2010 at the VIP lounge in the Philippine General Hospital.

One of the guests present is Mr. Clive Smith of the mHealth Alliance (mHA). The mHealth Alliance (mHA) is a United Nations Foundation hosted organization which has built a public-private coalition of mobile and health organizations that are working together to address the health needs of emerging economies across the world. These organizations are developing new ways for mHealth to increase the availability, accessibility, and effectiveness of healthcare services. Mr. Clive Smith is currently the director of global operations.

Dr Alvin Marcelo, Director of the UPM-NTHC, moderated the session. He started the session by saying,’This roundtable discussion is an important step towards creating an ecosystem conducive to sustainable mHealth solutions for the country. Let’s use this roundtable to exchange best practices and lessons learned and to ventilate our issues and concerns.’

Also in attendance were Mr Mark Landry (Health Information Technical Officer from the World Health Organization WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO)), Ms Alma Prosperoso (WHO), Mr Mario Matanguihan (PHIC), Dr Christian Gomez (DOH-HEMS), Mr Mon Duremdes (SMART), Mr Elmer Soriano (Clickdiagnostics), Mr Michael Syson (ADMU), Mr Andrei Coronel (ADMU), Mr Jose Lorenzo Acuin, Dr Cedric Festin (UP), Ms Marilyn Crisostomo (Adamson) and Dr Le Thi Tuyet Lan (University of Medicine and Pharmacy Vietnam).  Representing UPM-NTHC were Dr Alvin Marcelo, Dr Lyndon Crisostomo, Dr Ryan Banez, Dr Pura Angela  Wee, Dr Nimrod Firaza, Dr Jonathan Galingan, Ms Melissa Pedrena, Mr Reynaldo Gavino II, Mr Arturo Ongkeko, Mr Noel Banez, Mr Randy Fernandez and Mr Wayne Dell Manuel.

Mr Clive Smith initially presented on the global state of mHealth. According to him, “There are lots of existing pilot testing of mobile health applications but the greater challenge is how to integrate the complexity of health care when creating a mobile health applications.” mHealth is still in its early stages and there are still a number of issues of including those interoperability. However, there are a lot of possible applications such as education and awareness, remote monitoring, management and  training of health workers, treatment support, system administration, disease and epidemic outbreak tracking, supply chain management, remote data collection and data diagnostics. He also shared the mHA’s vision mission which is to mobilize innovation for global health at the edge of wireless networks and devices through: Research & advocacy (conferences, white papers), Information sharing (HUB: HealthUnbound.org), Facilitating deployments (Public-Private Partnerships) and forming National mHA affiliates. For the Philippines and for other developing countries, he advised that “It is high time for the developing countries to start on mHealth/eHealthapplication” and this can be done by forming an advocacy organization for mobile/health ecosystem, having an appropriate non-profit host or independence, engaging with government regarding mHealth/eHealth  and forming lighthouse project aligned with government policies.

The following were presented as current mHealth projects in the Philippines.  For Philhealth, Mr Matanguihan reported an SMS payment collection scheme for payment/collection which would address issues of geography and lessen burden of payment at those farflung areas. However, he reports issues of  Communication and Comprehensive Information Campaign and also Issues of comfort of using the systems. “Point of Sale ng Barangay,” a mobile java based application with an inventory management module and a report generator, was presented by Mr Acuin. Learnings garnered from developing this application included difficulty in teaching different people on using high end phones and difficulty in interoperability of different phones. Recommendations for this application included adding an sms/mms ordering facility and a web component. Dr Cedric Festin presented  the mCHITS, an electronic mobile records system and Triage. Issues that Dr Festin reported included underutility of the application and issues of confidentiality and privacy. Dr Pura Angela Wee then reported on the state of Buddyworks, a telemedicine program of the UPM-NTHC which has an SMS/MMS referral component. Dr Christian Gomez reported on SPEED, a mobile system which is used as a surveillance in post extreme emergencies and disasters, early warning system/detects usual increse (c& NC), tool for decision making and architecture/capability building/contigency plans. Issues he reported included verifying veracity of reports, interoperability of the system to other health information systems, coding of health facilities, architecture (procurement of computers and mobile phones), getting a common access code of all Telcos, minimizing costs and training in non disaster times. Next to present was Mr Mike Syson who described his eIMCI project, a web mobile application which aims to reduce child morbidity and mortality. Dr Elmer Soriano of Clickdiagnostics  then presented updates on its Maternal Telehealth which has components of SMS updates to mothers, Electronic patient records and Knowledge-base. Next steps for them include partnering with Medilink and water franchise, building up MareLinc as m-health franchise, Safe space and Last mile. Dr Ryan Banez was last to report on the SMS Appointment Reminder System for Prenatal Care done by the UPM-NTHC in Pasay. Issues encountered with the system included monitoring, feedback from end users, ease- of- use and sustainability of mHealth applications.

Lastly, Mr Mark Landry talked about his Tanzanian experience with mHealth and advised on the 5 P’s one needs to focus on in order to scale up. These are 1) Policies – data sharing and use/ rights/ open standards. 2) Partnership – importance of effective documentation 3)Principles 4) Practices –  to attract interest (donors, opportunities for the project to scale) and 5) Processes – good practices: importance of evaluation (how to evaluate the success of the projects)

The session ended with the group planning the next steps for mHealth which included presentation to the next IT4Health meeting.