HINZ 09 Wed 2pm m-Health - Priyesh Tiwari - University of Auckland

Priyesh started off with stating that more than half the world’s populations do not even have access to basic healthcare let alone the latest technology. The private sector in India is relatively well funded and many urban areas have world class healthcare facilities. However, approximately 70% of the population live in the ‘hinterlands’ where they are at the highest exposure to health risk. 42% of the population earns less than $1.25 per day.
His first project aimed at addressing these problems was ‘Standard Telemedicine’ using satellite communication technology for transmission. Satellite communications are expensive and there are problems with heat, dust and rough handling of computer equipment. There were also problems with poor electrical supply and user training.
In order to solve some of these problems they started using mobile phones. India has one of the fast growing mobile markets. The government has made it compulsory for connectivity providers to set up towers in rural areas. However, when patients use mobile phones to call doctors there are problems of medico-legal responsibility, getting prescriptions signed and making sure the right people get the right drugs.
The answer to these problems was to employ an intermediary ‘Village Health Champion’. There were still limitations though as they are not focusing on prevention, cognitive skills of the VHC were limited.
They then came up with a customised handheld device. It uses GPRS, Wifi , Broadband, Biometric ID, Smart card reader, built in printer, camera and external physiological sensors. The device also had built in CDSS to support the VHC.