mHEALTHPHC: An ICT Tool for Primary Healthcare in India

Author

Bondale, Nandini ; Kimbahune, Sanjay ; Pande, Arun K.

Volume

32

Issue

3

fYear

2013

fDate

Fall 2013

Firstpage

31

Lastpage

38

Abstract

Access to timely, quality healthcare is one of the important issues concerning communities in rural India, among many others such as education, safe drinking water, transport, approach roads, and electricity. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has made a significant impact on the functioning of enterprises and urban communities; however, the benefits of ICT are yet to reach rural communities. This article describes how an innovative ICT tool called “mHEALTHPrimary Health Care” (mHEALTH-PHC) can be used to meet the primary healthcare requirements of the community. The MHEALTH-PHC tool was developed after studying the needs and the logistic problems related to primary healthcare of the rural tribal population of villages in India.

Keywords

health care; logistics; medical computing; ICT tool; India; healthcare quality; information and communications technology; logistic problems; mHEALTHPHC; mHEALTHPrimary health care; primary healthcare; rural tribal population; Biomedical monitoring; India; Medical services; Mobile handsets; Pediatrics; Rural areas; Social factors; Statistics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Technology and Society Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0278-0097

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MTS.2013.2276670

Filename

6612731