With health apps, you now have a personal doctor on call anytime

How the techy dance between the mobile phone and health is easing consultation and diagnosis.

The mobile phone is now at the centre of our lives.

It is the first thing we look at when we wake up in the morning, and the last we check before we retire to bed at night.

And now, with m-health, it just got even more important!

Some of the m-health applications in the market, and what they can do for you:

MyDAWA 

Launched last month by an Irish investment company ION Equity, MyDawa enables Kenyans to purchase quality medicine from the convenience of their smartphones.

To use it, browse the wide range of products available and select what you need and add it to the shopping cart. If you require prescription-only medicines, attach a photo or a scan of the prescription.

Once uploaded, the MyDawa pharmacists will verify the details and get back to you with an order summary. Proceed to check out, view the items in the cart and select your preferred collection point. Delivery is within four hours upon request to the nearest pharmacy to a customer’s home or office for convenience.

HELLO DOCTOR/SEMA DOC

Hello doctor, a South African-built application, provides free essential healthcare information that is updated daily.

The app also provides access to healthcare advice, answers to health-related questions in live group chat forums, confidential one-on-one text conversation with a doctor, and the ability to receive a call-back from a doctor within 60 minutes.

The app is currently available in 10 African countries and features various language options. Additionally, Hello Doctor has been designed to work with most mobile phone models.

Through this app, Sema Doc,  a partnership between Safaricom and Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA), was developed for Kenya. M-Pesa and M-Shwari subscribers can access medical facilities such as hospitals, pharmacies and clinics and health loans using their mobile phones via the app. To benefit from the scheme, one pays a monthly premium of Sh300 via M-Pesa.

The subscriber is then covered for up to Sh10,000 for unexpected medical expenses, and a single-night in-patient cover of Sh5,000 underwritten by Cannon Assurance.

Some of the medical conditions approved for diagnosis and treatment under the health scheme include heart disease, malaria, insomnia, asthma, diabetes, gout, cold sores and allergies. Upon request for a doctor call-back or SMS-back, the health professional gets back within an hour.

Hello Doctor’s Sema Doc does not replace face-to-face consultation with a doctor but helps serve more people and frees up medics from spending a lot of time dealing with non-life threatening conditions, hence focusing on emergencies.

SINWAY

With an estimated 1.8 million people in Kenya being obese, representing five per cent of the total population, Cancer Scan Company Limited, together with its subsidiary AfricaScan and its preventive healthcare development arm, Campus for H, and in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Nakuru County and Naivasha Sub-County, launched an Android-enabled application that acts like a personal assistant who reminds its user of their weight and even cautions them on what they eat.

This app recommends weight reduction behaviour goals which meet your personal calorie reduction target — for instance, “reduce half a plate of ugali per day”. Recommendations of behaviour goals are designed consistent with the average current lifestyles of Kenyans.

But the app, which was launched in January, is not available for public use (as much as you can still download it). Currently, only registered Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) in Naivasha can use the app and find it useful.

Simway is a user’s weight management planner, supporter, and consultant.

M-TIBA

M-tiba allows people to save for health financing. The app acts as a mobile health wallet through which users are able to send, save and receive funds to get healthcare services using mobile phones at selected healthcare facilities.

M-Tiba recently linked up with the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) to provide health insurance to 2,000 households under the Supacover option. The benefits of the cover include an in-patient and out-patient cover, a maternity package,  a chronic ailments package, kidney transplant cover, renal dialysis and other medical conditions, including oncology and medical tests.

FIRST AID

First Aid—Kenya Red Cross: Emergency situations are inevitable, and that’s why you need an app that can guide you in performing basic first aid as you wait for professional help to arrive. This app highlights common emergencies and the actions to take, step by step, so as to save lives.

It gives the user tips on how to address cases of burns, how to care for an unconscious person or one who has a heart attack, or is bleeding profusely. Further, the app gives emergency contacts to users when abroad.

BABYCENTER

Babycenter, which is used by about 400 million expecting parents, guides the expectant mother through her pregnancy, week-by-week and day-by-day, with pregnancy tips and foetal development videos timed for the woman’s exact stage of pregnancy.

Once your baby arrives, your pregnancy app automatically turns into a daily parenting guide with the tools to support you through your first year as a new parent, week in, week out.

SMART HEALTH

The Smart Health App focuses on providing accurate baseline information on HIV/Aids, TB and Malaria. The app is currently available in Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Ghana, and Senegal. Additionally, future releases will include information on maternal, newborn and child health; nutrition; hygiene; and non-communicable diseases. The app also features a range of language options, which include English, French, Portuguese and Kiswahili.

MeDAFRICA

MedAfrica essentially acts as a clinic in your pocket. The app can be used to diagnose and monitor symptoms caused by diseases. It was launched by Kenyan developers, Shimba Technologies, in 2011. Additionally, the app also provides the user with a directory of doctors and hospitals close by, as well as provides information on potential treatment for diseases. To add to the features, the app can also be used to identify counterfeit medication and direct a user to the nearest doctor or hospital.

+

M-health applications essentially act as a clinic in your pocket. The app can be used to diagnose and monitor symptoms caused by diseases. PHOTO | FILE

SOPHIEBOT

SophieBot was developed by a group of six students from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) to revolutionise access to sexual health information in Kenya. Through an anonymous forum, users are able to chat with Sophie, a smart chat robot, about sexual and reproductive health topics.

The app is an intelligent system fed with verified information on sexuality and sexual reproductive health. It then relays this information to its users through conversations that are driven by text or voice chats.

Her features include anonymous forums and digital chat bots built into the app. Likened to the Artificial Intelligence Apple program Siri, Sophie Bot sources its answers from 10,000 base questions.

PEEK ACUITY

Peek Acuity allows anyone to measure visual acuity, which is one of the components of vision. Letter “E” is shown on the screen. It changes in orientation and size, each size being a different vision level. The patient points in the direction of the E and the tester records this response by swiping on the phone screen in the same direction the patient pointed (there is no need for the tester to look at the screen — the app works out if the answer was right or wrong).

The app calculates the vision score, presents it at the end of the test, and links to SightSim to show what the visual world looks like for the person just tested. It is designed by eye care professionals to be used to help identify people who need further examination by, for example, an optometrist or ophthalmologist.

IMCI APP 

Ministry of Health Kenya IMCI APP: The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) application is designed to assist health workers to access information on early diagnosis of childhood illnesses, according to a 2012 booklet by the then Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation. This application is provided free of charge to all health workers in Kenya.

MATIBABU

Matibabu: Developed in Uganda by team Code8, Matibabu is a smartphone app that assists patients to diagnose malaria without providing a blood sample. It uses a custom-made piece of hardware (matiscope) which consists of a red LED and a light sensor.

A finger is inserted into the device during diagnosis and the results are viewed via a smartphone.

The idea was developed after one of the team members with malaria  went through a painful and traumatising process of needle pricks as doctors tried to draw blood out of his body to test for malaria.