News
Global foundations form Mobile Health Alliance to maximise impact of
mobile technology on health worldwide
17 February 2009
Three of the world’s leading foundations involved in global health,
technology and humanitarian assistance, the Rockefeller Foundation, the
United Nations Foundation and The Vodafone Foundation, announced today
at GSMA’s Mobile World Congress an agreement to form the Mobile Health (mHealth)
Alliance, a partnership that will work to maximize the benefits of
mobile technology on health, especially in the developing world.
Terry Kramer, Vodafone Foundation Trustee said: "I believe it is
critical for us to harness the benefits that mobile technology can bring
to global healthcare, in both sociological and economic terms."
He continued: "When you consider that there are 2.2 billion mobile
phones in the developing world, 305 million computers but only 11
million hospital beds you can instantly see how mobiles can create
effective solutions to address healthcare challenges. Mobile technology
is providing new hope in the provision and promotion of quality
healthcare in a number of ways, such as accelerating the collection and
storage of patient data, training rural professionals and personalizing
the way patients receive medical treatment."
The formation of the Alliance resulted from a July 2008 Rockefeller
Foundation-hosted conference on the future of mHealth, in which
participants identified the need to increase collaboration in cross-sectoral
and pan-regional partnerships to improve healthcare delivery in the
developing world. Participants included representatives of Cisco,
Google, Microsoft, Nokia, and Qualcomm, as well as the Earth Institute,
MIT and the UN World Health Organization.
“Mobile technology can enable significant progress toward reaching
the UN Millennium Development Goals relating to health. This mHealth
Alliance will provide a platform to bring the technology and health
sectors together to maximize the impact mobile technology can have in
improving health across the developing world," said Daniel Carucci, Vice
President for Global Health at the United Nations Foundation, which
operates a £15 million partnership with The Vodafone Foundation using
mobile technology to advance UN humanitarian work.
The mHealth Alliance will encourage the development of scalable,
sustainable and open-standard health solutions that can be made widely
available through creating partnerships that strengthen the potential of
mobile technology. It will also support project implementation and
commissioning rigorous research on the opportunity for mHealth.
A new report, mHealth for Development: The Opportunity of Mobile
Technology for Healthcare in the Developing World [1], commissioned
by the United Nations and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, is
also being launched at the GSMA conference. It is the most comprehensive
report of its kind, surveying the current mHealth landscape and
highlighting over 50 examples of mHealth projects in developing
countries.
Ariel Pablos-Mendez, Managing Director at the Rockefeller Foundation
said, “The rapidly-growing field of mHealth is a case study of smart
globalization — dynamic partnerships fostering innovative, sustainable
solutions to make the broadest possible progress in developing
communities. The mHealth Alliance is particularly important as it sits
at the apex of mobility and global health advancements. This is a
multi-stakeholder opportunity that can bring benefits to mobile
operators, healthcare systems and patients alike.”
Further information
- mHealth
for Development: The Opportunity of Mobile Technology for Healthcare
in the Developing World (4MB PDF).
- Mobile
Health (mHealth) Alliance
- Rockefeller
Foundation
- United
Nations Foundation
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