Health workers in developing countries face challenges that are often taken for granted in the developed world, but new technologies have the potential to become leap frog solutions that address such barriers.
Major obstacles exist today in the identification of patients, a fundamental issue at the very core of delivery of healthcare in resource poor settings.
All too often patients have medical histories that doctors or community health workers (CHW) have no access to.
Addressing this difficulty would potentially revolutionise prevention and treatment in a diverse array of public health areas ranging from vaccination campaigns, to prenatal care, to improving treatment adherence in diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV.
SimPrints is in the process of developing a mobile-based fingerprint scanner that instantly connects an individual’s fingerprint to health records such as immunisation records and prenatal visits.
This Bluetooth-enabled scanner, allows for real time access to health records, which enables CHWs to instantaneously access critical information necessary to provide care. In contrast to paper records sitting unhelpfully back in the clinic office, this technology would enable a CHW to swipe the mother’s fingerprint and receive an instantaneous update of what vaccines they have received and what needs to be administered that day.
by Shane Turner via NursingFacultyJobs.com
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