Mhealth application gets high grade for public health data collection

Strengthening Pharmaceutical Systems is a USAID-funded project that aims "to build capacity within developing countries to effectively manage pharmaceutical systems and ultimately save lives by improving access to quality-assured medicines." They recently trialed an mhealth application in Malawi aimed at collecting data to support anti-malaria drug management efforts. The application they tested is called Episurveyor, created by Datadyne, and it has huge potential to aid public health field workers with data gathering and analysis.

Episurveyor is a free application that allows you to create web-based data gathering forms that can be filled out via cell phone from the field. It's a great application in that it harnesses relatively widely available cellular technology and uses it to tackle one of the biggest nuisances in epidemiologic and public health data gathering: Namely collating and inputting data from paper forms into electronic databases where it can be shared and analyzed. Using GPS enabled phones allows data to be tagged with geo-coordinates, adding a further layer of granularity.

Datadyne is implementing their application across the globe, and doing a good job of testing its effectiveness with case studies and pilot research along the way. Anyone interested in mhealth application in public health and international health would do well to follow Datadyne on Facebook at Datadyne.org. Their frequent updates speckle the globe with interesting projects using innovative technology to measure important health problems (and in public health, measurement is fundamental).

The Malawi experience has been chronicled in a brief public health case study report available here. The objectives of the pilot, as stated in the case study, were to assess:

* "How Episurveyor Mobile can help alleviate the burden of data collection, data entry, and data analysis for future malaria quarterly supervision surveys

* The application of GPS feature in Episurveyor Mobile to map out health facilities visited

* The use of basic Episurveyor in a supervision where limited support is provided by Datadyne."

The case report, authored by Management Sciences for Health out of Arlington Virginia, concludes with a recommendation that Datadyne's mhealth application be used "for all future data collection of the malaria supervision activity in Malawi."