Mobile phones for HIV/AIDS treatment

In honor of World AIDS Day, I’m linking to a post on the MobileActive.org blog about treating HIV/AIDS patients via mobile phones. The post discusses two programs to engage patients with “virtual call centers,” text messages and, eventually, home testing services, particularly in South Africa, which has the world’s highest population of HIV-positive residents.

(Thanks to Dr. Enoch Choi for alerting me to this post.)

I’ve covered mobile health in the developing world several times on this blog and elsewhere, notably from one week of the the Making the eHealth Connection conferences in Italy last summer, and subsequent follow-up coverage. See “The Davos of health IT?” and “Desmond Tutu Presents e-Health Call to Action.”

Those who attend the 25th annual TEPR conference in February should expect to hear a progress report on a project to promote health information interoperability in the U.S. by cell phone. The Medical Records Institute, the group behind TEPR, also is pushing mobile technology in healthcare through the Center for Cell Phone Applications in Healthcare.

Looking ahead, I’m hoping to get a closer look at mobile technology for HIV treatment at MedInfo2010 in Cape Town, South Africa. But that’s a long way off. The HIV epidemic is not going to wait.