The three-day 2010 mHealth Summit was held last week in Washington, DC, November 8-10. It brought together over 2,000 experts from both public and private sectors to discuss how mobile technologies are being used to improve healthcare and deliver innovative medical and health services around the world. The conference explored ways mobile technology can increase the access, quality and efficiency of healthcare to millions of families in communities in the U.S. and around the globe.
R4D Managing Director, Gina Lagomarsino, led a presentation attended by over 100 conference delegates on the challenges of implementing health insurance in low and middle income countries, and how mHealth and mobile money can help overcome these challenges.
Lagomarsino’s session called the “The Challenges of Health Insurance in the Developing World: Can Mobile Money Help?,” addressed the challenges of implementing routine premium collection from people in the informal sector, preventing insurance fraud, and collecting co-payments, given many countries’ spotty connectivity. Her presentation drew on research from two R4D projects, the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage and the Center for Health Market Innovations.
“The rapid growth of mobile money and wireless medicine is an exciting opportunity to provide information directly to isolated areas and to healthcare providers,” said Lagomarsino. “The benefits of it are being felt in poor communities around the world.”
Lagomarsino also addressed the challenges of implementing health insurance in the developing world noting that officials implementing National Health Insurance schemes must select the right technology package, address existing incompatible legacy systems, and manage internet and electricity shortfalls in remote areas. They must also ensure acceptance and optimal use of the new technology and training in time to roll out the new system. Providers also have separate internal information systems or limited technology capacity.
Keynote speakers at the mHealth Summit included, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Ted Turner, chairman of the UN Foundation, and Bill Gates. Ted Turner announced a new learning partnership between Proctor & Gamble and Healthpoint Services Global, which creates access in rural clinics to services including qualified doctors via telemedicine, supported by two-way video and electronic medical records. Healthpoint will now leverage P&G’s scale to reach underserved health consumers. Healthpoint is profiled on the Center for Health Market Innovations.