Every spring, students in GH804: Using Mobile Technology to Improve Health Outcomes at the Boston University School of Public Health finish the course by building something real. In May 2017, six groups presented the CommCare applications they had built for actual global health organizations at Dimagi’s fifth annual Mobile Health Showcase in Cambridge, taking questions from the practitioners who build these tools for a living.
What the six groups built
- An HIV/AIDS data collection app with Cooper/Smith and the Malawi Ministry of Health.
- A pneumonia risk screening tool for clinicians with Baylor University, also in Malawi.
- A mental health screening app for Partners in Health in Chiapas, Mexico.
- A patient satisfaction system for Partners in Health community health workers, also in Chiapas.
- A developmental delay screening tool for auxiliary midwives in Myanmar, with the charity TAG.
- A newborn care app with Helping Babies Survive, for providers in Kenya working the first two hours after birth.
What makes the course unusual is that the clients are real and the apps get used. The BU article has the students and faculty describing that in their own words, including why mobile tools took hold in global health after 2010. Read the full story at BU School of Public Health.
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