HP, Non-Profit Partner on Malaria Surveillance

(HP)

Computer maker HP and non-profit organization Positive Innovation for the Next Generation (PING) are collaborating to improve the quality and efficiency of disease surveillance in Botswana. The project involves mobile health monitoring technology that HP and PING believe can help better protect populations against major malaria outbreaks.

The initiative uses HP’s webOS operating system for smartphones and cloud computing technology to enable health workers to more efficiently report on malaria cases and minimize the harm caused by outbreaks. The program equips health care workers in Botswana with HP Palm Pre 2 smartphones (pictured right) to collect malaria data, notify the Ministry of Health about outbreaks, and tag both data and disease surveillance information with GPS coordinates.

These data are expected to help prepare the first-ever geographic map of disease transmission in the country, enabling faster response times and better measurement of malaria cases to monitor treatment, and scale up the distribution of mosquito nets. The Clinton Health Access Initiative and Botswana mobile network provider MASCOM are also partners in the project.

The malaria monitoring program is in a year-long pilot phase. Health care workers collect data via a webOS application on Pre 2 smartphones, upload the data over a mobile network, and analyze and share the data via the cloud. Through this system, says HP, analysis now takes hours rather than weeks to complete.

When health care workers detect an outbreak, they can upload specific case and location information from their mobile devices in the field. Health officers in the area and members of the Ministry of Health then receive a text message alerting them of the outbreak, which allows them to more quickly deploy preventative measures to reduce disease transmission.

A surveillance application on the webOS platform enables health workers to perform real-time surveys from the field. They can enter data using images, video, audio, as well as GPS coordinates, and qualitative and quantitative information about the case.

Read more: Texting Service To Fight Counterfeit Malaria Drugs

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