scaling up mhealth in developing countries - white paper commissioned by advanced development for...

Scaling Up Mobile Health

Elements Necessary for the Successful Scale up of mHealth in

Developing Countries

Jeannine Lemaire

AGENDA

Why Mobile Health?

mHealth is able to address a wide variety of healthcare challenges, including:

Map of mHealth pilots in Uganda by Sean Blaschke, UNICEF Uganda

• Critical success factors necessary for the scale up of mHealth– Global assessment of mHealth projects– Interview of mHealth experts

• Case Studies• Best Practices• Recommendations

Senior Advisor, Global Health and Technology at AshokaFormer Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance

David Aylward Patricia Mechael Brooke Partridge Anne Roos Weil

Executive Director of the mHealth AlliancemHealth and Telemedicine Advisor at The Earth Institute

President and CEO of Vital Wave Consulting

Co-Founder and CEO of Pesinet

eHealth expert and Program Manager at the World Health Organization (WHO)

Getachew Sahlu

• Plan for scale up and sustainability on a large scale.

• Perform local assessments and take into account local factors in the design and planning phase.

• Align with local and national health priorities.

• Secure buy-in from the government, communities and local healthcare structures as soon as possible.

• Collaborate with local implementation partners.

• Establish strategic partnerships.

• Perform monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and assessments of impact– Use meaningful, measureable metrics– Collect data to prove cost-efficiency/cost-

effectiveness of mHealth solutions– Use M&E to guide adjustments to the program,

maintain flexibility to ensure locally appropriate and effective

• Integrate the program within existing healthcare structures

• Employ an integrated solution, cross-sectoral and/or holistic approach

• Identify a sustainable and scalable business model

• Build partnerships with the public and private sectors.

• Build local capacity• Ensure the software is geared

towards objectives, suitable for local conditions & designed for the end-user

• Perform social marketing• Link with other programs• Seek to empower users,

particularly women• If an aspect of the project is

failing, fail quickly and publicly.

• Mainstream mHealth in the MOH and other relevant government bodies

• Establish an e/mHealth structure to support mainstreaming of mHealth

• Create an inter-ministerial working group and collective agreement involving various stakeholders

• Identify specific data, technology and interoperability standards

• Advocate for the integration of mHealth within local healthcare initiatives.

• Establish global network of key players to inform global approach to support scale up

• Establish global repository of mHealth applications, tools, best practices, recommendations and data

• Advocacy by institutional players for integrating mHealth

• Donors and institutional players need to support the evaluation of initiatives in developing countries and creation of common metrics & indicators.