Partnership focuses on mobile health

February 25, 2009

Three global foundations are teaming up to improve health care in the developing world through programs and information supplied by mobile phone.

The Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation have launched the Mobile Health Alliance with the goal of maximizing the impact of mobile health care.

Currently, there are 2.2 billion mobile phones in the developing world and 11 million hospital beds, the groups say.

"Mobile technology is providing new hope in the provision and promotion of quality health care in a number of ways, such as accelerating the collection and storage of patient data, training rural professionals an personalizing the way patients receive medical treatment," Terry Kramer, a trustee for Vodafone, says in a statement.

The alliance will encourage development of open-standard health solutions that can benefit from mobile technology, and will support for research on mobile-health opportunities.

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