Seizing the mMomentum: The possibilities of mobile health for prenatal and neonatal outcomes

The following post is part of our series, Technology and Innovation for Maternal and Newborn Health. Join the global conversation as we explore the potential for delivering innovative technologies to save the lives of newborns around the world. 

Last week, a record number of healthcare thought leaders and innovators, including my colleagues at the HIT Lab, converged at the mHealth Summit – arguably the fastest-growing event in the industry. Though the event is only in its third year, its growth signals an intense interest in the promise of harnessing wireless technology to improve health outcomes.

Members of Chibwana Village Community Health Core Group arm themselves with facts about good maternal, newborn and child survival practices to fight mortality in their community. Malawi, photo by Amos Gumulira for Save the Children.

Visit a region that may benefit most from mHealth initiatives, and it’s easy to understand the excitement and interest in mobile communications strategies. During a recent field research trip to Tanzania, I was amazed to see many individuals using up to four mobile phones – each with different SIM cards, representing a variety of carriers. Perhaps I should not have been surprised, considering that the International Telecommunications Union estimates mobile coverage has reached 90 percent of the world’s total population. For many residents of Tanzania and other developing regions that lack telecommunications infrastructure, mobile phones represent a vital link to socialize and conduct business.

Importantly, this mobile revolution is also placing access to medical care in the palms of many who need it most – including vulnerable mothers and healthcare workers.

Worldwide, mHealth pioneers are positioning themselves at the convergence of a technological boom and an unmet demand for maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) by harnessing mobile multimedia devices to improve care and communication. Unfortunately, while many mHealth programs are making headway at local levels, we have yet to see evidence of long-term financial sustainability, or wide utilization across countries or continents.

To explore the current status of these trends, this spring my colleagues and I completed a systematic analysis of published and unpublished global MNCH mHealth programs. We were encouraged to see projects leveraging mobile technology to reduce delaysin care andfacilitate referrals for life-saving interventions such as obstetric emergencies and time-sensitive neonatal surveillance. For example, “Wired Mothers” in Zanzibar, Tanzania is one pilot project that provides mobile phones to link pregnant women with health units and thereby facilitate the opportunity for delivery by a skilled birth attendant.

Mobile phones also provide a platform forpublic health messages and paperless data collection. For example, Thailand’s “Better Border and Healthcare Program” nearly doubled the number of mothers seeking prenatal care and immunizations for their infants through campaigns that utilizedmass short messages services (SMS). 

Still, there are challenges in scaling up individual projects into national health strategies. To start, mHealth initiaves involve a variety of stakeholders, including service providers, health agencies or workers, multiple government bureaus, donors, and individual end-users. Their interaction must be coordinated to ensure affordability and widespread access and to enforce guidelines for content and data exchange.

Infrastructure constraints, such as poor connectivity and lack of electricity for keeping phones charged also present challenges. Phone and service cost also can be prohibitive for end users. Other issues associated with underresourced health ecosystems, such as the costs of sustaining emergency transport systems and staffing inadequacies, may undermine progress.

Overall, it is critical we encourage feedback and evaluation of MNCH mHealth programs to develop and expand best practices. With the right planning, research and careful execution,mobile tools can help bridge financial constraints, health worker shortages and infrastructure gaps to support better maternal, newborn and child wellbeing worldwide.

Find more information about current MNCH mHealth programs and their successes and challenges in “Special Delivery: An analysis of mHealth in maternal and newborn health programs and their outcomes around the world” published in Maternal and Child Health Journal.

• Click here to visit the “reality booth” supported by MCHIP via USAID and Plan International USA. The booth provided the mHealth Summit’s attendees with a forum to discuss the realities of implementing mHealth projects.