GreatConnection may be powering Mobily's Baby Ultrasound MMS

Mobily, a mobile operator in Saudi Arabia has partnered with Qualcomm and the Dr Sulaiman Al-Habib Medical Group to launch a new service for expectant parents: Baby Ultrasound MMS service. The service provides parents with their baby's ultra sound image and video via MMS after their visit to their doctor at Dr Suliman Al-Habib Hospital.

Sound familiar? Qualcomm has been working closely with a startup named GreatConnection for a few years now. While the Mobily makes no mention of the company, GreatConnection's Mobile Baby offering matches the service that the mobile operator announced this week.

“This exclusive service allows expecting mothers to share their happiness using high quality images that can be passed around between family and friends through MMS, social networks or even email,” Sami Nashwan, Mobily’s senior vice president for Consumer Marketing, stated in the press release.

Last January MobiHealthNews met up with GreatConnection’s Co-Founder and CMO Åsa Nordgren at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to discuss Great Connection’s Mobile Baby offering. Nordgren said the service was first introduced in May 2009 at Mama Mia, Scandinavia’s largest private women’s and child health service provider. The clinic offered Mobile Baby as a service for expecting parents who often want to share their ultrasound images with friends and family. Currently this is typically done via a print out or a DVD of the video, but with Mobile Baby, Nordgren says clinicians can save time by just transmitting the video directly to the parents’ smartphones or email. Nordgren said it cost about $20 for the transmission. Nordgren said that every transmission includes a way for the company to track which phone numbers are receiving the images, which is one safeguard to ensure the data remains private and secure.

It's no surprise that a Saudi Arabian mobile operator is the first to launch such a service -- the Middle East is quickly becoming a hotbed of activity for mobile health. Last year we reported that the mobile app for a Bluetooth-enabled blood glucose meter had found one of its largest markets in Saudi Arabia. Another report indicated that Qualcomm was working with regional governments in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia to launch mobile health networks across the countries. Reports have also mentioned another tie up between Saudi Arabian operator Mobily, Ericsson and an as yet unnamed healthcare provider: The "proof of concept" service coming out of this trio leverages sensors to remotely monitor vital signs and provides healthcare providers with relevant data and alerts.

Last year Ken Seymens, a partner at Vesalious Ventures provided MobiHealthNews with one reason for the budding traction mobile health has begun to enjoy in the Middle East: "Yes, wireless is going to move it all forward, especially in the developing world because many of those markets don’t have existing infrastructure," he said.

"No one is laying cable in the desert, for example.”