Healthcare via 160 characters at a time: SMS

Cell phones often bring people anxiety, foster email addition and prevent users from feeling “away from it all.” But now, the simple cell phone is becoming the vehicle for quality healthcare in rural places thanks to one inventive Stanford student, Josh Nesbit, and SMS capabilities.

The idea is rather simple, a laptop with a GSM modem resides in the “hub,” the area’s hospital. Volunteers in the field get the phones and submit symptoms via SMS. Using free software called FrontlineSMS which is an open-source software program that enables large-scale, two-way text messaging between the phones and the laptop, the doctors can respond with treatment instructions.

A six month pilot program was performed in Malawi where doctors are scarce. Instead of spending over 1000 hours traveling from one area to another, doctors were able to attend to more patients, spend more time in their clinics and patients were treated faster.

We provide tools, not solutions or programs. It’s up to local partners to apply these tools. By empowering clinics to run their own mobile health initiatives, we’re fostering sustainable projects based on need as well as assets.

Clearly, the world needs more bright kids who can use today’s technology to thwart the planets woes. Kudos to Nesbit for his efforts.

Company page: [FrontlineSMS] via [IntoMobile]