FrontlineSMS:Medic

Katherine Alex

Website: http://medic.frontlinesms.com/
Article in The Guardian featuring FrontlineSMS:Medic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/27/mobile-phones-sms

Brief Description of the Technology: Noting that community health workers in the developing world face significant challenges in communicating medical information in remote areas, the founders of FrontlineSMS:Medic created a system involving "a free, open-source software program that enables large-scale, two-way text messaging using only a laptop, a GSM modem, and cell phones." They run something of a hub-and-spoke model, in which there's a central clinic with a laptop running their software, and mobile phone-toting community health workers interfacing with patients out in the rural villages. Their solution is particularly valuable in that their target market communities, despite facing chronic diseases requiring "complex treatment regimens and ongoing monitoring," face impediments to access and are served by relatively few medics.

Use Case for this Technology:
Primary Actor: Community health worker
Goal: To ascertain whether a patient is experiencing side effects on account of taking his prescribed medication
Procedure: A patient in a remote village comes to his community health worker, complaining of nausea and rash. The community health worker uses his mobile phone to send a text message to the computer at the central clinic containing the name of the medication her patient has recently taken, and a request to learn the side effects associated with that medication. Software on the system in the central clinic rapidly responds to the community health worker's message, sending a text message containing information on the side effects which could be expected from the drug. If the community health worker is satisfied with this query, she relays this information to her patient and will pursue further treatment options as necessary; otherwise, she will call the central clinic to request further, customized information from the medic on staff.

Role Played by Standards in this Technology: FrontlineSMS:Medic uses GSM mobile phone standards, allowing for international roaming. One might also consider it to use open standards generally, in that its software is distributed free of charge and uses code that is open source.