dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Knut Staring <knutst@xxxxxxxxx>]

 ------------------------------
*From:* moca-announce-bounces@xxxxxxx [mailto:moca-announce-bounces@xxxxxxx]
*On Behalf Of *moca-announce@xxxxxxx
*Sent:* 17 February 2010 16:41
*To:* moca-announce@xxxxxxx
*Subject:* Telemedicine in the Making: Moca Source Code Released

 *Telemedicine in the Making: Moca Source Code Released
**MIT Student Organization Unveils mHealth Tools to Improve Health Delivery
in Remote Areas*

Cambridge, Massachusetts and Barcelona, Catalonia (February 17, 2010) *Moca,
an MIT student organization, today announced the release of the Moca source
code, a set of foundational building blocks for telemedicine and mHealth
applications that use wireless networks to connect rural healthcare workers
to urban-area specialists. *

Around the world, millions of people in rural areas lack access to medical
specialists, such as a radiologist to read an ultrasound or a cardiologist
to evaluate a patient with rheumatic heart disease. With the rapid expansion
of cellular networks and substantial advancements in smartphone
technologies, it is now possible - and affordable - to transmit patient data
digitally from remote areas to specialists in urban areas, receive real-time
feedback, and capture that consultation in a database. This enables rural
healthcare workers to break down distance barriers to treatment and provides
unprecedented opportunities for underserved populations to receive better
healthcare.

The Moca source code, which can be downloaded for free at www.mocamobile.org,
enables the building blocks that allow rural healthcare workers to use
smartphones to record patient data and transmit the files to specialists for
diagnoses and treatment suggestions.

"The release of the Moca source code is an important contribution to the
nascent health care open source movement by expanding the functionality of
current available data management software beyond SMS texting, said MIT
researcher and Moca team member Leo Anthony Celi. We hope it will become a
valuable resource for the medical and public health communities to expand
care to underserved populations," he added.Oxford University Lecturer Gari
Clifford, also a Moca team member, welcomed the release saying: The Moca
team approaches this project mindful that a strong telemedicine solution
needs to be made customizable and open-source in order to facilitate the
dissemination of best practices in health care delivery."

Following the organizations mission to create an open, free telemedicine
platform, Moca team members wrote the source code for the Google Android
operating system, which allows users to download, customize, and implement
the Moca platform for their use at no cost. Further, Moca is fully
compatible with OpenMRS, an open source medical record system, and is
hardware agnostic to allow users to build on their current technological
infrastructure.

Moca is a wonderful example of how an interdisciplinary team can apply
information technology expertise to the enormous problem of health in the
poorest countries in the world, said David Aylward, Executive Director of
the mHealth Alliance, a global non-profit founded by the Rockefeller, United
Nations and Vodafone Foundations, and the US Presidents Emergency Program
for Africa Relief (PEPFAR). We are grateful for this very important
contribution, he added.

The Moca end-to-end solution includes:

*Google Android Client Application:* The interface where a health care
worker can document patient information through text, images, and GPS
location, and upload the medical data to OpenMRS. Any user is welcome to use
the application on their own Android smartphone and view their patients
cases on Moca's OpenMRS server.

*Moca Dispatch Server: *The intermediary layer between Moca's Android client
and the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. The Moca Dispatch Server
also provides the flexibility to extend Moca to other mobile devices and
medical record system back-ends.

*OpenMRS Moca Module: *An OpenMRS plug-in that allows urban-area specialists
to receive patient cases uploaded from a smartphone to the Moca Dispatch
Server. The Moca Module creates a queue of patient cases in need of review
and allows for text or e-mail messaging for specialists to send instructions
to healthcare workers.

*OpenMRS Flash Media Viewer Module:* Moca's open source contribution to the
OpenMRS platform. The Media Viewer allows healthcare providers to view and
manipulate patient images with contrast, zoom, brightness, and sharpness, in
addition to playing audio and video media files. The Media Viewer is modular
in design and can be used outside of Moca's remote medical diagnostics
applications.

*Documentation:* Step-by-step instructions on how to demo the system and
setup a development environment.

*Sample Questionnaires:* Disease-targeted patient assessment questionnaires
developed by ClickDiagnostics in collaboration with a network of doctors
through extensive pilots in Africa and Asia. These assessment questionnaires
showcase the potential impact of Moca for field health professionals.

The Moca team encourages health organizations to work with this platform and
to customize a solution for their own development projects. As IT
integrations into healthcare present immense challenges such as workflow
re-design and worker acceptance, the Moca student organization provides
assistance for deployment implementation and assessment. Healthcare
organizations are encouraged to contact Moca at questions@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx to
discuss potential collaborations. Technical questions about the software can
be directed to the online forum: moca-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

The release of the source code represents a major milestone for Mocas
development. Moca began as a project within MITs
NextLab<http://nextlab.mit.edu/>program, and has since grown to a
diverse student organization hosted at the
MIT Engineering Systems Division. Team members include student and faculty
volunteers from MIT, Harvard and other universities worldwide. Further, the
advisory of field experts from a wide array of partners, both commercial
corporations and NGOs made the maturity of the current source code possible.

Deployment plans for the Moca organization are ambitious. The team is in
discussions to implement the Moca platform in the Philippines, U.S., India,
and Mexico. Technical plans include the creation of an improved
customization platform and the expansion of data input functionality to
include video, such as ultrasound and echocardiogram, and audio, such as
heart and lung sounds. Moca is also planning to expand compatibility with
plug-in medical devices for ultrasound and electrocardiographic review.

To contact the Moca team, please write to questions@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Moca would like to acknowledge Asia Pacific College, ClickDiagnostics,
Dimagi, Fundacin Carlos Slim, Google SOC, IEEE, MIT Corporate Relations, MIT
Industrial Liaison Program, MIT Public Service Center, mHealth Alliance,
National Telehealth Center of the Philippines, Nokia, OpenMRS, Partners in
Health, Regenstreif Institute, and Telmex for their support, and its
advisors, Dr. Hamish Fraser, Dr. Aamir Khan and Professor Pete Szolovits.

_______________________________________________
Moca-announce mailing list
Moca-announce@xxxxxxx
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/moca-announce




-- 
Cheers,
Knut Staring