Kenya: Study Roots For Use of Mobile Phones in Health Provision

By Henry Neondo

 NAIROBI---A study by researchers at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in partnership with the Wellcome Trust Research Programme of the UK urges for widespread use of mobile phone technology so as to help improve healthcare worker practices and hence service provision to patients.

 In an article released today in the Lancet of UK, KEMRI researchers say although treatment guidelines are relatively simple, numerous studies from across the continent have found that health workers often do not follow the guidelines.

  Co-author and head of the Department of Disease Prevention and Control, in the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, Dr Willis Akhwale said this is an excellent example of high quality research responding to immediate needs of policy implementers who are continuously searching for simple and low cost solutions to strengthen weak health systems and provide better care for Kenyans.

 “We need to explore ways of scaling up such intervention to all health workers in the country”, he said. 

 The Communication Commission of Kenya's data indicate that 17.6 million Kenyans use mobile phones.

Lead author of the study Dr Dejan Zurovac says, ‘Malaria is still a major killer in Africa. This trial, the first one using text-messaging to target health worker behaviour in a developing country, has shown that a simple intervention like SMS can substantially improve the quality of care patients receive”.

 He added that the strategy has the potential for improving quality for other diseases, too. “Text-messaging should complement traditional approaches to support clinical management such as health worker training, supportive supervision, or job-aids”, he said.

 Prof Bob Snow, who heads the group in Nairobi, said the role of the mobile phone in improving health providers’ performance, health service management and patient adherence to new medicines across much of Africa has a huge potential to engage and promote health to many people, who despite being poor and often living in remote areas, nevertheless have access to cell phone communication.

 However, Snow adds “it is important to rigorously test good ideas to measure their impact before they become practice”.

Use of integrating mobile phone use in the health sector will go along way to allay fears by experts that although there is widespread use of the technology, few sectors have integrated the use of cellphones in their day to day activities. This is however minus the financial sector which appears to be moving fast in the cellphone integrations.