Thanks everyone for your messages to date. You can follow the discussion on our RSS feed here: https://www.hifa.org/rss-feeds/17
Please continue to publicise our discussion by sharing our landing page: https://www.hifa.org/news/mhealth-innovate-exploring-healthcare-workers-...
In order to understand better the pros and cons of using personal mobile phones, I would like to ask you are aware of situations where health workers are banned from carrying or using their personal mobile phone (whether for work or otherwise).
It seems likely that there may be guidance on restriction of personal mobile phone use among health workers in facilities such as clinics or hospitals. This might possibly range from putting personal mobile phones on mute through to trivial use of social media. Does anyone have any experience or awareness of this?
By contrast, for the peripatetic worker, such as a community health worker, it seems to me that it is *essential* that the health worker carries and uses a mobile phone in their work. In this case, I assume that this will nearly always be the health worker's own personal phone? The alternative would be that a health worker would need to carry a work phone (in addition to their personal phone), which would seem to be very cumbersome. Is anyone aware of this or similar arrangements? If so, it would be good to explore. If not, then a personal mobile phone is a prerequisite for some kinds of health worker. The question then becomes to identify those health workers for whom it is necessary, and to have pragmatic guidance to address issues such as remuneration of cost of using the phone.
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. Email: neil@hifa.org