mHealth for NCD Side event at the World Health Assembly
There is growing recognition that non-communicable diseases (NCDs) dominate both health care needs and expenditure in all developed and most low and middle-income countries. NCDs cause an estimated 36 million deaths every year, including 9 million people dying prematurely before the age of 60.
Mobiles are the most rapidly adopted technology in the world. Mobile phones are already being successfully used in different fields such as banking, governance, agriculture, education as well as health, improving access to health services, training health workers, and assist individuals to manage their diseases. We may soon be living in a world where the medical profession is prescribing more apps than drugs!
There is an incredible opportunity to use mobile as a platform for non-communicable disease prevention and control. The initiative we are here to discuss today focuses on the use of mobile technology to take on non-communicable diseases – in the areas of prevention, enforcement and treatment - and how to integrate these in health systems. This initiative is relevant to all countries - high, middle and low income. Costa Rica, represented here today by its Minister for Health, H.E. Minister Daisy Coralez, is the first country planning to implement the mHealth for NCDs program and we look forward to hearing from other countries experences and expectations - both from the panel and the room.
Our distinguished panel will discuss how these recent technological innovations are changing the healthcare and health-management context for NCDs, and providing the global community with new opportunities for prevention and control. The panel will discuss this unique opportunity and the challenges in using mHealth for prevention, treatment and policy enforcement for NCDs.
ITU/Rowan Farrell
mHealth for NCD Side event at the World Health Assembly
There is growing recognition that non-communicable diseases (NCDs) dominate both health care needs and expenditure in all developed and most low and middle-income countries. NCDs cause an estimated 36 million deaths every year, including 9 million people dying prematurely before the age of 60.
Mobiles are the most rapidly adopted technology in the world. Mobile phones are already being successfully used in different fields such as banking, governance, agriculture, education as well as health, improving access to health services, training health workers, and assist individuals to manage their diseases. We may soon be living in a world where the medical profession is prescribing more apps than drugs!
There is an incredible opportunity to use mobile as a platform for non-communicable disease prevention and control. The initiative we are here to discuss today focuses on the use of mobile technology to take on non-communicable diseases – in the areas of prevention, enforcement and treatment - and how to integrate these in health systems. This initiative is relevant to all countries - high, middle and low income. Costa Rica, represented here today by its Minister for Health, H.E. Minister Daisy Coralez, is the first country planning to implement the mHealth for NCDs program and we look forward to hearing from other countries experences and expectations - both from the panel and the room.
Our distinguished panel will discuss how these recent technological innovations are changing the healthcare and health-management context for NCDs, and providing the global community with new opportunities for prevention and control. The panel will discuss this unique opportunity and the challenges in using mHealth for prevention, treatment and policy enforcement for NCDs.
ITU/Rowan Farrell