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Systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mHealth) projects in Africa

BACKGROUND: Access to mobile phone technology has rapidly expanded in developing countries. In Africa, mHealth is a relatively new concept and questions arise regarding reliability of the technology used for health outcomes. This review documents strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SW...

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Autores principales: Aranda-Jan, Clara B, Mohutsiwa-Dibe, Neo, Loukanova, Svetla
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3942265/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24555733
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-188
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author Aranda-Jan, Clara B
Mohutsiwa-Dibe, Neo
Loukanova, Svetla
author_facet Aranda-Jan, Clara B
Mohutsiwa-Dibe, Neo
Loukanova, Svetla
author_sort Aranda-Jan, Clara B
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Access to mobile phone technology has rapidly expanded in developing countries. In Africa, mHealth is a relatively new concept and questions arise regarding reliability of the technology used for health outcomes. This review documents strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of mHealth projects in Africa. METHODS: A systematic review of peer-reviewed literature on mHealth projects in Africa, between 2003 and 2013, was carried out using PubMed and OvidSP. Data was synthesized using a SWOT analysis methodology. Results were grouped to assess specific aspects of project implementation in terms of sustainability and mid/long-term results, integration to the health system, management process, scale-up and replication, and legal issues, regulations and standards. RESULTS: Forty-four studies on mHealth projects in Africa were included and classified as: “patient follow-up and medication adherence” (n = 19), “staff training, support and motivation” (n = 2), “staff evaluation, monitoring and guidelines compliance” (n = 4), “drug supply-chain and stock management” (n = 2), “patient education and awareness” (n = 1), “disease surveillance and intervention monitoring” (n = 4), “data collection/transfer and reporting” (n = 10) and “overview of mHealth projects” (n = 2). In general, mHealth projects demonstrate positive health-related outcomes and their success is based on the accessibility, acceptance and low-cost of the technology, effective adaptation to local contexts, strong stakeholder collaboration, and government involvement. Threats such as dependency on funding, unclear healthcare system responsibilities, unreliable infrastructure and lack of evidence on cost-effectiveness challenge their implementation. mHealth projects can potentially be scaled-up to help tackle problems faced by healthcare systems like poor management of drug stocks, weak surveillance and reporting systems or lack of resources. CONCLUSIONS: mHealth in Africa is an innovative approach to delivering health services. In this fast-growing technological field, research opportunities include assessing implications of scaling-up mHealth projects, evaluating cost-effectiveness and impacts on the overall health system.
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spelling pubmed-39422652014-03-05 Systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mHealth) projects in Africa Aranda-Jan, Clara B Mohutsiwa-Dibe, Neo Loukanova, Svetla BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Access to mobile phone technology has rapidly expanded in developing countries. In Africa, mHealth is a relatively new concept and questions arise regarding reliability of the technology used for health outcomes. This review documents strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of mHealth projects in Africa. METHODS: A systematic review of peer-reviewed literature on mHealth projects in Africa, between 2003 and 2013, was carried out using PubMed and OvidSP. Data was synthesized using a SWOT analysis methodology. Results were grouped to assess specific aspects of project implementation in terms of sustainability and mid/long-term results, integration to the health system, management process, scale-up and replication, and legal issues, regulations and standards. RESULTS: Forty-four studies on mHealth projects in Africa were included and classified as: “patient follow-up and medication adherence” (n = 19), “staff training, support and motivation” (n = 2), “staff evaluation, monitoring and guidelines compliance” (n = 4), “drug supply-chain and stock management” (n = 2), “patient education and awareness” (n = 1), “disease surveillance and intervention monitoring” (n = 4), “data collection/transfer and reporting” (n = 10) and “overview of mHealth projects” (n = 2). In general, mHealth projects demonstrate positive health-related outcomes and their success is based on the accessibility, acceptance and low-cost of the technology, effective adaptation to local contexts, strong stakeholder collaboration, and government involvement. Threats such as dependency on funding, unclear healthcare system responsibilities, unreliable infrastructure and lack of evidence on cost-effectiveness challenge their implementation. mHealth projects can potentially be scaled-up to help tackle problems faced by healthcare systems like poor management of drug stocks, weak surveillance and reporting systems or lack of resources. CONCLUSIONS: mHealth in Africa is an innovative approach to delivering health services. In this fast-growing technological field, research opportunities include assessing implications of scaling-up mHealth projects, evaluating cost-effectiveness and impacts on the overall health system. BioMed Central 2014-02-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3942265/ /pubmed/24555733 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-188 Text en Copyright © 2014 Aranda-Jan et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Aranda-Jan, Clara B
Mohutsiwa-Dibe, Neo
Loukanova, Svetla
Systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mHealth) projects in Africa
title Systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mHealth) projects in Africa
title_full Systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mHealth) projects in Africa
title_fullStr Systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mHealth) projects in Africa
title_full_unstemmed Systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mHealth) projects in Africa
title_short Systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mHealth) projects in Africa
title_sort systematic review on what works, what does not work and why of implementation of mobile health (mhealth) projects in africa
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3942265/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24555733
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-188
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