A mobile devices health information application for community based health services

Ashesi University College moved to a peri-urban area from the center of the city of Accra, Ghana in 2011, where we were confronted with the lack of services in the new location. This challenge presented an opportunity for the university to use the resources it has - mainly experienced human resources and knowledge - to work on some of the difficulties faced by the immediate community that welcomed us. One of these projects is the use of mobile technology to improve the health services in the district. We developed a health information application that runs on a mobile devices to simplify monitoring data collection from the health officers' routine activity and to automate the aggregation step before reporting to management. The application also gives useful indicators to the health officers in the community based on the routine data they collect to aid their work, as well as a means to provide in service training for health personnel. This paper will report on the process followed to develop the mobile based health information system. We will discuss the approach chosen to develop the application that can be quickly adapted for use in the field to make an impact.