This is the largest project for health care information delivered via mobile ever undertaken in history – Andrew Zolli, PopTech!
Project Masiluleke (“to give wise counsel” and “lend a helping hand” in Zulu), or Project M, is designed as a 3 stage test of the ability of mobile technology to help reverse the HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis crises in South Africa and across the continent. The goal is to connect citizens nationwide to critical health-related information, as well as lifesaving HIV and TB resources.
Dan Butcher at Mobile Marketing reports that the first stage of the project uses “Please Call Me,” or PCM, text messages - a special, free form of SMS widely used in South Africa and across the continent (why not have public service access for text messages in the US?) - to deliver approximately 1 million HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) messages each day for one year to the general public. The messages connect mobile users to existing HIV and TB call centers where trained operators provide callers with accurate healthcare information, counseling and referrals to local HIV and TB testing clinics. After three weeks of beta testing, Project M had reportedly helped triple average daily call volume to the National AIDS Helpline in Johannesburg. Assuming that only 2 percent of PCM recipients respond in the coming year - and only half of those initiate an HIV/AIDS test - Project M has the potential to mobilize several hundred thousand South Africans to get tested in its first year alone.
To handle this surge in calls, Project M will implement virtual call centers where existing help-lines will be augmented by teams of highly-trained, highly-adherent HIV+ patients who will field questions via their mobile devices from the general public. These peer counselors will be closely vetted, trained and represent “gold-star” patients - extremely knowledgeable about their illness, diligent about their treatment regimen and intimately familiar with the weight of an HIV+ diagnosis. These virtual call centers hold the potential to create hundreds of new jobs and considerably increase the capacity of South Africa’s health system.
The second phase focuses on HIV+ people currently receiving antiretroviral therapies (ARV) with the goal of increasing compliance with the treatment regimen. TxtAlert: Keeping Patients Connected to Care will send reminders to patients of their scheduled clinic visits.
For the third phase of Project M, the project partners are actively exploring a breakthrough distributed diagnostics model: low cost, at-home HIV testing with mobile counseling support. To overcome the stigma associated with HIV and TB testing (note for some readers, TB is a frequent co-morbidity of HIV and most people in these countries know this), these at-home tests (much like at-home pregnancy tests) would provide a free, private and reliable way for anyone to take the critical first step of knowing his or her status, with high-quality information provided via mobile device. Such at-home tests would also reduce the costs and burdens to the health care system in these countries, freeing up resources to target people who require more extensive care. The project recognizes that this type of testing and counseling opens up many questions that have to be resolved, but also notes that they have been receiving very positive responses from South African government and healthcare officials, as well as likely users in both urban and rural communities.
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