Open source mobile system to aid developing nations

Using mobile devices to improve healthcare access in developing countries is an idea society has pinned its collective high hopes upon. Now, a team of student and faculty volunteers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are taking the idea a step further, leveraging an open source software system that relies on smartphones running Google's Android OS to connect healthcare workers in rural regions with physicians in urban areas.

Called Sana, which means "healthy" in Spanish and Italian, the mobile app lets healthcare workers collect patient data, including photos and video, and send them in a text message to an electronic record database, according to a PhysOrg.com report. Then a doctor reviews the data and sends a preliminary diagnosis to the healthcare worker via text.

Part of a growing telemedicine effort that allows physicians to provide healthcare to patients through electronic or digital means, Sana joins a host of mHealth solutions that are targeted at the developing world.

Doctors participate either because they are salaried employees of a country’s public health system--and telemedicine comes with the job--or because they work for a company that provides telemedicine and uses a fee-for-service model. While some doctors in urban areas donate their time to help patients in rural areas, physicians' fees are built into the patient charges.

The Sana system, which includes at least one smart phone and a Web-connected server, stemmed from an MIT NextLab class and another mobile technology class taught by Hal Abelson, the Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, offered in 2008. According to the PhysOrg.com article, several students from both classes developed the software code for Sana and formed a volunteer organization to distribute the code for free and help deploy Sana in developing countries.