“Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries, but in how these discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.” –Bill Gates
When tackling the issue of the burgeoning intersection between health care and mobile technology in the developing world, it’s hard not to portray this fascinating initiative as the addition of one phenomenon, technology, to another, Africa’s poor health infrastructure. Really, it should be a combination of the two.
The headline “can new technologies help to tackle the health problems of the world’s poorest?” should not be a “silly question” as an article by The Economist implies. Though it goes against the grain of stereotype, many developing countries are awash with modern devices like cell phones and ICTs. The ubiquity of mobile phones is one of the chief reasons why many hope that new technologies (from smart phone apps to electronic health records EHRs will revolutionize health care, empower patients and doctors, and improve outcomes while cutting costs.
In 2008, Bill Gates stepped down from Microsoft to run his charitable foundation (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), which became one of the richest and most influential voices in global public health. Gates, too, once held the view that modern technology could not help the world’s poor. At the "Creating Digital Dividends" conference in 2000, Gates expressed his skepticism that modern technology could not help the world’s poor. “Do people have a clear view of what it means to live on 1 dollar a day? You’re just buying food. You’re trying to stay alive,” Gates told attendees of the technology conference. With a change of heart in recent years, the former head of Microsoft says, “Poor people absolutely deserve better technology,” adding that great advances for the developed world could emerge from innovations in the developing world.
Indeed, mHealth systems is transforming health care in poor countries as well as rich ones. Voxiva, an American technology firm that set up mHealth systems in Rwanda and Peru has helped launch Text4Baby, a public-health campaign to educate pregnant mothers (they receive free text messages with medical advice) that will soon become the biggest such effort in the world.
But what developing countries need most is more money for doctors, not just investments in technology. Although simpler medical tasks can be conducted by community health workers, the expertise of a doctor is necessary to avoid the slippery slope of self-diagnosis through the web. This is a case of recognizing and utilizing the best methods to provide better health case to those who need it. Integrating technology with developing health systems will prove the best way to improve the quality, speed, and breadth of coverage across the globe – not because Africans, Latin Americans, and Asians in third world countries “deserve” it, but because it works most effectively.
I agree with you that we need to combine technology and health and that this can be a huge help to people in developing countries. I think that you are also right to say that technology can never truly replace a doctor and that developing countries need more and better doctors. However, I do not think it is as easy as saying that they just need more money for doctors. There needs to be a total overhaul in the education system in these countries to produce competent doctors, and right now it may be more financially feasible and more practical to try to teach community health workers simple procedures. I think the future goal should be to improve the education system so that people who want to be doctors can get the proper training, but at this point it may be best to take it one step at a time.
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