Mobile Technology in Fight Against Malaria

Recently HP launched  a yearlong clinical trial in Botswana that will equip doctors and nurses with Palm Pre 2  smartphones and an app that is designed to collect information about malaria outbreaks - and becomes a key player in a new era of mobile health monitoring.

The application stores pictures, video, audio and GPS information, all of which can be stored and visually monitored in a larger database. The goal of this information is to help officials and doctors deter a huge malaria outbreak as it begins spreading through an area.

“HP recognizes the transformative power of applying mobile and cloud technology to advance health care in both developing and developed markets,” said Gabriele Zedlmayer, vice president at HP in the office of global social innovation. The technology is being built in a partnership with the mobile health company Positive Innovation for the Next Generation.

HP has been carrying out a similar project in Singapore that is being used to monitor cardiovascular disease. Heart disease accounted for more than 31 percent of deaths in the country in 2009. In this trial, people are asked to wear an HP watch-like device that includes a number of sensors capable of tracking a patient’s heart-rate and other vital signs. As the data is collected on the watch, it is sent through an application on a patient’s mobile phone and then transmitted to a doctor. Doctors are then given a Palm Pre 2 cellphone with a propriety app that can show graphs and charts of an individual’s vital signs.

In his article in the New York Times, Nick Bilton concludes that it’s only a matter of time before these kind of mobile health monitors become globally commonplace: "The vast majority of next-generation smartphones will include heart monitors to keep taps on your well-being and help doctors determine the early stages of disease and health problems."