Bridging the Human Resource Gap in Primary Health Care Delivery Systems of Developing Countries With mHealth: Narrative Literature Review

BACKGROUND: Mobile health (mHealth) has the potential to solve human resource issues in the health care sector. mHealth is of particular interest in developing countries, where widespread mobile networks and access to devices are connecting people like never before. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper was to review published and unpublished literature, field projects, and pilot studies on mHealth usage in overcoming shortage of human health resources in developing countries. METHODS: A narrative literature review was undertaken using an iterative approach in extracting literature focused on mHealth and human health resources of low-income countries, especially India. The present review has undertaken comprehensive coverage of the work on related field projects that have been either published, accepted for publication, or pilot tested. RESULTS: This review presented the use of mHealth across various dimensions of primary health care, including data collection, disease surveillance, health education, supervision, monitoring, and feedback. Field studies of fast, error-free data collection and transmission using mHealth were also documented. New apps for supervision, monitoring, and utilization of innovative health education tools were documented in the current review. Practical limitations of mHealth and challenges set forth in developing countries included issues of data security, cost constraints, health provider privacy, and technical barriers. CONCLUSIONS: In the present review, we have documented a few mHealth projects that contribute to the proficient use of human resources. These projects pave the path for the efficient utilization of mHealth, offering solutions to emerging human resource challenges and simultaneously revamping the health care delivery in resource-limited settings.