فن آوری موبایل برای انتشار اطلاعات سلامت Mobile technology for health information dissemination

1. Introduction Namibia faces challenges in providing health care information/services to the rural, remote and under-resourced communities. The country has a dual system of public and private health care providers with public health care providers constituting 85% of the population of healthcare providers (Smith, 2011). Namibia has 343 hospitals and clinics spread across the country, thereby making it difficult for the health care service providers to enable access to healthcare information to remote communities since the country is sparsely populated (Health in Namibia). The healthcare centers in Namibia, i.e. both public and private institutions, have challenges in distributing healthcare information to the whole population of the country. The mobile application developed in this research for health information sharing allows members of the communities to access their health related information from anywhere and at any time without physically visiting the hospitals or clinics. The use of the mobile healthcare system will improve the process undertaken in providing healthcare services to the rural communities in Namibia (Qiang, Yamamichi, Hausman, & Altma, Mobile applications for the health sector, 2011). The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) lacks a suitable platform where the communities and health service providers can interact with each other through a mobile application platform where awareness of diseases and health information is shared between the community and health service providers. The exchange and distribution of information within the environment can significantly address the challenge of access to health information services highlighted in the National Development Plan 4 (NDP4) (Commission, 2012). This study therefore investigated this further and recommended a mobile healthcare application as a solution to address the challenge. The study is expected to improve the way the MoHSS disseminates health information to the communities in Namibia through the development of a mobile application. This study was undertaken because this would allow members of the communities to access health related information from anywhere, anytime, without physically visiting the hospitals or health centres.