mHealth Alliance

By  Jonah Comstock 04:39 am December 7, 2012
Mark Blatt and Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira Texting programs for health education in developing countries have been around for over a decade, but several factors are bringing global health efforts to a new scale in 2012, including increasing mobile adoption in developing countries and an increased spirit of collaboration. Nafis Sadik, a United Nations Foundation board member, has worked with the UN...
By  Brian Dolan 09:29 am October 29, 2012
Last week digital health incubator Rock Health announced its fourth class of startups, which will be the first to go through the program with the increased $100,000 in funding. Rock Health also announced last week that Kaiser Permanente, the largest integrated healthcare system in the US, has joined as a partner to the program and will help advise Rock's startups alongside its other partners,...
By  Neil Versel 02:14 am September 27, 2012
mHealth Alliance Executive Director Patricia Mechael Eight companies, programs and non-governmental organizations -- including one associated with former President Bill Clinton -- have received two-year "catalytic" grants to foster wider use of mobile technologies in the name of improving maternal and child health worldwide. The mHealth Alliance, a global project founded by the United Nations...
By  Neil Versel 02:00 am September 4, 2012
Some groups have criticized the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for not building usability requirements into the national standards for "meaningful use" of electronic health records, suggesting that usability issues have hindered adoption. Though it hasn't been designed to help providers achieve meaningful use – or necessarily for the U.S. market – a new...
By  Brian Dolan 03:22 am July 26, 2012
In May GigaOm published its first ebook, called Connected Health: How mobile phones, cloud and big data will reinvent healthcare, written by longtime digital health scholar and consultant Jody Ranck. Within the book’s more than 200 pages is perhaps the most comprehensive and studied analysis of connected health that I have had the pleasure to read. MobiHealthNews has long been a fan of Ranck’s...
By  Brian Dolan 06:42 pm March 7, 2012
The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) has committed $9.9 million to the mHealth Alliance to help it create grant competitions for innovative mobile health services that aim to improve women and children's health. Maternal health has been an area of focus for mHealth services: Text4Baby, a free, SMS-based health service for new and expectant mothers is perhaps one of the most...
By  Neil Versel 10:32 am December 6, 2011
The mHealth Alliance, a project of the United Nations Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation, is probably the most global of all the groups out there promoting mobile health. And the mHealth Summit, which the mHealth Alliance and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health are staging this week, likely is the most international of mobile health events held in...
By  Neil Versel 10:56 am November 22, 2011
With mobile healthcare growing as rapidly as it has, it was only a matter of time before the largest health IT trade group refined its efforts in this segment. That time is now. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is in the process of launching mHIMSS, its mobile initiative. mHIMSS began taking individual registrations among current HIMSS members on Nov. 2 and will...
By  Neil Versel 03:52 am September 22, 2011
Mobile health is on the big world stage now, at the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting. Last week, the UN introduced its first mobile app, delivering news from various UN agencies and programs to Android, iPhone/iPad and Windows Phone devices. Among other functions, the app allows users to support and get customized updates from UN Foundation efforts in healthcare, including the...
By  Chris Gullo 12:31 pm September 14, 2011
The mHealth Alliance (mHA) appointed Patricia Mechael (PhD, MHS) as its executive director. Mechael has been active in the mHealth field for over a decade, using mobile technology to improve healthcare in Africa and other low- and middle-income areas. She was previously the director of strategic application of mobile technology for public health and development at the center for global health and...