An interactive messaging system for patients’ collaboration with health workers: case study Mulago hospital.

Abstract

Health issues in developing countries are becoming more serious day by day, as different diseases attack and infect people making the public health sector overwhelmed. This has made it difficult for health workers to accurately study the trend of different diseases in many cases, thus failing to analyze the way patients behave after being diagnosed. At the same time there is an increased use of mobile information technology gadgets, which can be used as a way to minimize on the gap between health centers and patients. Monitoring and evaluation also becomes a problem as most of the health centers in Uganda lack personnel that can analyze the collected data to effectively give reports that reflect what is on the ground. In this system we propose the use of mobile messaging technologies to enhance health monitoring and patient data analysis. The use of SMS software to inform health workers in the field about symptoms can potentially improve patient follow-up care and cut fuel costs and travel times. This system captures and stores patient’s information about their symptoms. Upon implementation, a patient sends this information via a given number and waits Jar a reply from the doctor who interfaces with the system in order to view the patient ‘s records and give necessary recommendations .We find that this mobile information technology will facilitate the health workers with information which they can use to effectively monitor and evaluate health performance of different patients in a short time.