Since 2022 HIFA is supporting mHEALTH-INNOVATE, an international research consortium exploring how health workers use their personal mobile phones to support their work. HIFA is the main platform for sharing experience and expertise on this topic. Your inputs over the coming days and weeks are crucial and will feed into high-level policy discussions at WHO.
See https://www.hifa.org/news/mhealth-innovate-exploring-healthcare-workers-...
Our research shows that healthcare workers across the world are using their personal mobile phones to carry out a range of work-related activities. This includes:
1. seeking advice and support from colleagues while handling patients
2. managing referrals and emergencies
3. supervising other healthcare workers, sending reports and sharing practical information
4. retrieving, recording and storing patient information
5. taking and sharing photos, for instance of x-rays and test results
6. searching for information online
7. communicating with patients [and their families]
Our systematic review expands on the above, noting that healthcare workers describe using their personal mobile phones to:
- socialise and exchange emotional support with other healthcare workers and to air work grievances
- search for general clinical and practical information in officially endorsed information sources, but also in sources that are not formally endorsed.
All of the above were noted also in our primary research with health workers and policymakers in Uganda (2024).
QUESTION: Do you (or the health workers in your setting) use personal mobile phones for work tasks? If so, what are you/they using them for?
As an additional question, which of the above uses are most important for the delivery of safe and effective care? Can they be prioritised?
MY THOUGHTS
Depending on context, I would think #1 and #2 are critical. It is hard to imagine how any health worker can carry out either without a mobile phone. #6 would also seem to be very important and #7 would be vital perhaps especially for primary healthcare workers. With regard to 'searching for information online', the informal research summary (https://zenodo.org/records/15011500) specifies that we are talking about 'general clinical and practical information' - generic data that might help diagnosis and management in the immediate context (rather than access to personal data such as results of tests).
My sense is that concerns about breaches in privacy or confidentiality are the primary concern about informal phone use. For voice calls there is less risk of breaches, but when personal information is exchanged in text or other format this could be insecure and accessed by others. Here, #4, #5 and #7 would especially carry risks.
What do you think?
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. He is a member of the HIFA mHealth-Innovate working group: https://www.hifa.org/projects/mhealth-innovate-what-can-we-learn-health-... Email: neil@hifa.org