[Re: https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/mhealth-innovate-66-cost-implications-m... ]
Dear Vaishnavi,
Thank you for your very helpful message.
"Healthcare workers in India... have been provided mobile phones by the state... However the mobile phones they have been provided have 2 GB or 3GB RAM. Official apps which workers have to use, along with huge amount of data they have to keep in the phone, the government provided phones doesnt function for long. In my fieldwork, most workers have reported that their government phones stopped working with one year, and now they are all using perosnal mobile devices to do the work."
This sounds like a simple failure of implementation. Health workers are expected to carry and use a mobile phone provided by the health system, but what they are given is not fit for purpose.
"internet data packs are paid for as part of their salaries"
Are you talking here about internet data packs for the phones that are provided by the state and/or personal mobile phones that are used for work purposes?
"Most workers have bought their own mobile phones, from their own money, as online, app based work is mandatory for them. They have to upload daily data on the official apps as well as reports on whatsapp. So they have to have a mobile phone, hence even if government one stops working, they have to arrange a device of their own."
This compounds the implementation failure above. They have to use apps that are not supported by the state-provided phone, so they end up using their own personal mobile phones.
"Interestingly, the workers do not see this as threat to patients data privacy."
This is an important observation. It sounds like health workers are not provided with adequate guidance? Indeed, do they receive any guidance about whether and how they may use their state-provided versus personal mobile phones?
We would be very innterested to see examples of guidance, and to learn from experience in other countries.
Has anyone done any research into the role of state-provided mobile phones by health workers? What are the advantages and disadvantages of issuing such phones? In which circumstances are they needed / not needed?
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