Poor Uptake By Healthcare Workers In mHealth Pilot Program

A pilot study of an app for mobile healthcare workers in a rural South African multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) treatment program has valuable lessons for scaling new mHealth initiatives in other resource-constrained environments, concludes an article published in PLoS Medicine. The app, called Mobilize, electronically standardized the recording and tracking of MDR-TB patients on low-cost, functional phones.

In a seven-month pilot, the article's authors assessed the acceptability and feasibility of using Mobilize to record and submit adverse events forms weekly during the intensive phase of MDR-TB therapy and to evaluate mobile healthcare workers perceptions. However, according to the article, tracking and reporting adverse clinical events have been difficult for mobile healthcare workers, who traveled daily to patient homes to administer and monitor therapy.