The Aceh Besar midwives with mobile phones project: Design and evaluation perspectives using the information and communication technologies for healthcare development model

The introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) such as mobile phones to basic health service providers in rural areas can help bridge lacunae in their work environment,resultingfromunder-capacitatedresources,constrainedaccesstoinformation and delayed interventions. The midwife mobile phone project was implemented in 15 health centres in Aceh Besar, Indonesia involving 223 midwives. The study group (121 participants) used project cell phones to transmit health statistics to a central database, contact coordinators and peers for health advice and information, and communicate with doctors and patients. The ICT for healthcare development model (Author, Lwin, Ang, Lin, & Santoso, 2008) was used a heuristic to determine project effectiveness. Findings from the project indicate that the mobile phone has proven to be an effective and efficient device for facilitating smoother communication, and allowing speedier emergency response. The system also aids ingatheringanddisseminatinghealth-relatedinformationtomidwives,whointurnconvey this knowledge to the patient community. The Technology-Community-Management model (Author & Zhao, 2009; Lee & Author,2008) wasused asa conceptual frameworkfor probingthedesignofICTfordevelopment projects.Inparticular,infrastructural,economic, technological, and socio-cultural barriers were examined to highlight the tension between a top-down hierarchicalmodel of technologydiffusion versus a moreparticipatorybottom-up approach.

[1]  M. C. Mazzoleni,et al.  MIE 2008: eHealth beyond the Horizon – Get IT there , 2009, Methods of Information in Medicine.

[2]  Haluk Geray,et al.  Network policy formation between idealist and strategic models: a political economy perspective from Turkey , 1999 .

[3]  Kentaro Toyama,et al.  Information and Communication Technologies for Development , 2008, Computer.

[4]  Pantelis Angelidis,et al.  Mobile Telemonitoring Insights , 2006 .

[5]  H. Galperin,et al.  GENDERSTANDING MOBILE TELEPHONY. WOMEN, MEN AND THEIR USE OF THE CELLULAR PHONES IN CARIBBEAN , 2007 .

[6]  Katarzyna Wac,et al.  Towards an application framework for context-aware m-health applications , 2007, Int. J. Internet Protoc. Technol..

[7]  Orc Macro.  Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey 2002-2003 , 2003 .

[8]  S. Bali,et al.  Mobile phone consultation for community health care in rural north India , 2007, Journal of telemedicine and telecare.

[9]  Upkar Varshney,et al.  Using wireless technologies in healthcare , 2006, Int. J. Mob. Commun..

[10]  A. Bhavnani,et al.  The role of mobile phones in sustainable rural poverty reduction , 2008 .

[11]  C P Chandrasekhar,et al.  Information and communication technologies and health in low income countries: the potential and the constraints. , 2001, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

[12]  Tim Kell.  The Roots Of Acehnese Rebellion, 1989-1992 , 1995 .

[13]  Harald Baldersheim,et al.  Talking back! Empowerment and mobile phones in rural Bangladesh: a study of the village phone scheme of Grameen Bank , 2003 .

[14]  Richard M. Lee,et al.  Understanding Social Connectedness in College Women and Men , 2000 .

[15]  F. Henwood.  Establishing gender perspectives on information technology: problems, issues and opportunities , 1993 .

[16]  A. Cinco.  Gender and ICT , 2007 .

[17]  Roni Rosenfeld,et al.  HealthLine: Towards Speech-based Access to Health Information by Semi-literate Users , 2004 .

[18]  L. Say,et al.  Maternal mortality in 2005 : estimates developed by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and the World Bank , 2008 .

[19]  Harald Baldersheim,et al.  TALKING BACK! EMPOWERMENT AND MOBILE PHONES IN RURAL BANGLADESH A Study of the Village Pay Phone of Grameen Bank , 2003 .

[20]  N. Hafkin,et al.  Gender information technology and developing countries: an analytic study. Executive summary. , 2001 .

[21]  D. Richardson,et al.  Grameen Telecom’s Village Phone Programme in Rural Bangladesh: a Multi-Media Case Study Final Report , 2000 .

[22]  C. AbouZahr,et al.  Maternal mortality at the end of a decade: signs of progress? , 2001, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

[23]  Seungyoon Lee and Arul Chib.  Wireless initiatives for connecting rural areas: Developing a framework , 2008 .

[24]  Ayman Elnaggar.  The status of Omani women in the ICT sector , 2007 .

[25]  Arul Chib,et al.  Midwives and mobiles: using ICTs to improve healthcare in Aceh Besar, Indonesia1 , 2008 .

[26]  A. Pentland,et al.  Handheld computers for rural healthcare : Experiences from research concept to global operations , 2002 .

[27]  Contributions from M. Walpole.  The Millennium Development Goals Report , 2008 .

[28]  Cynthia Hewitt de Alcántara.  The Development Divide in a Digital Age. An Issues Paper , 2001 .

[29]  Rich Ling,et al.  “We Release Them Little by Little”: Maturation and Gender Identity as Seen in the Use of Mobile Telephony , 1999, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[30]  V. Gqamane.  The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2009 , 2009 .

[31]  A. Starrs.  Delivering for women , 2007, The Lancet.

[32]  Lana F. Rakow,et al.  Remote mothering and the parallel shift: Women meet the cellular telephone , 1993 .

[33]  Jonathan Donner,et al.  Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World : A Review of the Literature , 2007 .

[34]  Jayanthy Maniam,et al.  Mobile phone based pregnancy support system , 2007 .

[35]  Ronald Rosenfeld,et al.  HealthLine: Speech-based access to health information by low-literate users , 2007, 2007 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development.

[36]  Ahmed Ryadh Hasan,et al.  Measuring The Impact Of ICT On Women In Bangladesh , 2006, CSREA EEE.

[37]  Angelina Kouroubali,et al.  Structuration theory and conception-reality gaps: addressing cause and effect of implementation outcomes in health care information systems , 2002, Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[38]  Patricia N Mechael.  Exploring Natural Progression of Health-Related uses of Mobile Phones: an Egyptian Case Study , 2006 .

[39]  P. Tebeu,et al.  Maternal mortality in Maroua Provincial Hospital, Cameroon (2003-2005). , 2007, The West Indian medical journal.

[40]  Farhaan Mirza,et al.  Opportunities and Barriers for Mobile Health in New Zealand , 2007, MedInfo.

[41]  A. Chetley,et al.  Improving health, connecting people : the role of ICTs in the health sector of developing countries - a framework paper , 2006 .

[42]  Nancy Hafkin,et al.  Gender Issues in ICT Policy in Developing Countries: An Overview , 2002 .

[43]  Klaus A. Kuhn,et al.  MEDINFO 2007 - Proceedings of the 12th World Congress on Health (Medical) Informatics - Building Sustainable Health Systems, 20-24 August, 2007, Brisbane, Australia , 2007 .

[45]  K. Ganapathy,et al.  mHealth : A Potential Tool for Health Care Delivery in India , 2008 .

[46]  Viswanath Venkatesh,et al.  Why Don't Men Ever Stop to Ask for Directions? Gender, Social Influence, and Their Role in Technology Acceptance and Usage Behavior , 2000, MIS Q..

[47]  K. B. Beckman.  Indonesia's Transformation and the Stability of Southeast Asia , 2003 .

[48]  Jonathan Donner,et al.  Innovations in Mobile-Based Public Health Information Systems in the Developing World: An example from Rwanda , 2004 .

[49]  J. Lothian,et al.  Promoting, protecting, and supporting normal birth: a look at the evidence. , 2008, Journal of obstetric, gynecologic, and neonatal nursing : JOGNN.

[50]  Badan Pusat Statistik,et al.  Indonesia demographic and health survey , 1989 .

[51]  Fang Liu,et al.  Txt2MEDLINE: Text-Messaging Access to MEDLINE/PubMed , 2006, AMIA.

[52]  Clinton Hr.  Improving maternal health. , 1997, Population today.