[Re: https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/mhealth-innovate-30-definitions ]
Regarding the current definition of “informal health’: the current definition is based partly on two considerations:
* Healthcare workers sometimes use formal work phones informally, in other words to carry out tasks that are not formally regulated. For instance, some healthcare workers have been given work phones by NGOs for very specific purposes such as gathering data. However, they may also choose to use these phones informally, for instance to contact patients in ways that are not formally regulated.
* Secondly, healthcare workers sometimes use personal in ways that are formally regulated, for instance through “Bring-Your-Own-Device” (BYOD) approaches.
Any edits to the definition need to take both of these scenarios into account.
In practice, I agree that the focus on personal phone use if the most relevant, but in that case, the definition still needs to make it clear that we are not talking about formally regulated BYOD approaches.
Best, Claire
HIFA profile: Claire Glenton is professor of evidence-based practice at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and a researcher at Cochrane Norway. Claire has a particular interest in systematic review methodology, including methods for disseminating the results of systematic reviews and methods for synthesising qualitative research. She regularly serves as technical advisor on World Health Organization guidelines. She also co-coordinates the GRADE-CERQual Project Group. She is one of the principal investigators of the mHealth-Innovate project, looking at informal use of mobile phones by health workers. https://www.hifa.org/support/members/claire-1 Email: Claire.Glenton AT hvl.no