Effectiveness of an integrated m-health platform for disease control

Many governments the world over ratified the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which seek to improve the general wellbeing of people (UNDP, 2010). These MDGs touch on health among other things. The sixth MDG seeks to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by year 2015. In tandem with this MDG, our study sought to develop and use an integrated mobile health system to curb malaria disease control. The study also assessed the effectiveness of the integrated mobile health system in combating malaria. The m-health used ubiquitous smart phones which the majority of people owned as a data collection and reporting tool in the fight against malaria. The research was carried out on health workers and patients in a small town called Bindura, in Zimbabwe. Health workers collected data on malaria cases and sent them on a password protected website using internet enabled mobile phones which they used to send details on every case that they received cases of malaria and send messages back via the mobile platform. The mobile website was also be used for user to user communication and users information dissemination through administrator. The mobile website was tested for response time, availability and speed among other factors. The health workers and patients’ responses together with the metrics that were measured on the website led to a conclusion that a mobile phone is a very powerful tool that can be used to improve malaria control in the data collection and monitoring. Keywords-component; m-health; mobile smart phone, malaria, health worker