Medic Mobile works with the simplest of cell phones to help provide health care to those far away from their nearest hospital. Photo: Fabiola Coupet/Mercy Corps.

In rural communities around the world, the virtual doctor is in.

The distance between far-flung communities and their nearest hospitals can be fatal. Medic Mobile bridges the gap using a common household item: the cell phone. It’s not the same as a living, breathing doctor, but Medic Mobile comes pretty close, and it does so using a list of platforms that is strikingly similar to what you might find on a smart phone. These seemingly-sophisticated technologies can work on even the most basic of cell phones and computers, just like those found all over the developing world.

Medic Mobile’s Sim Apps, in addition to open-source platforms like FrontlineSMS, OpenMRS, Ushahidi, Google Apps, and HealthMap, allow hospital staff sitting at a computer to communicate with multiple health workers in rural areas. The health workers’ phones are basic, but Medic Mobile uses a tiny parallel SIM card that fits between any GSM phone and a carrier’s cell phone to allow these phones to run the necessary apps. The Medic Mobile website provides a more in-depth description of the many technologies it employs. In a 2009 interview with GOOD magazine, co-founder Lucky Gunasekara described Medic Mobile’s importance:

We can communicate need in real time. Say I am a community health worker in rural Malawi and one of my patients gets really sick. Before this system came along, for a lot of clinics, the patient would die, because even though I have some basic health training as a community health worker, there is nothing I can really do. They're still just as disconnected as the communities they live in. Now with our system clinicians see things in real time and they communicate back.

In addition to saving lives, the program saves time: its website says that in six months, the pilot program in Malawi “saved hospital staff 1200 hours of follow-up time and over $3,000 in motorbike fuel” and cut 900 hours of travel time for antiretroviral therapy monitors by eliminating their need to hand-deliver reports to the hospital.

Since its inception in 2009, Medic Mobile has expanded to Honduras, Haiti, Uganda, Mali, Kenya, South Africa, Cameroon, India and Bangladesh. The platform is adaptable to different situations: it was used in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake to link first responders and locals in need of help. As a result of its successes, Medic Mobile was recently named one of the Top 11 in 2011 mobile health innovators of the year by mHealth Alliance.

The proliferation of cell phones is sparking a revolution in developing-world health care. Innovators from all reaches of the globe have used the near-ubiquitous technology to increase health care affordability and access. By adapting sophisticated platforms to basic devices, they’re turning $15 cell phones into invaluable lifelines.

Editor’s note: For more information on the connection, check out A Medical Lab in the Palm of Your Hand, A Dose of Cell Phone Surveillance Helps Aid Workers Save Lives, and Paging Dr. Smartphone, to name a few.

Cellphones are transforming the way in which aid workers are tackling the transmission of infectious diseases in Haiti. Photo:ambafranceht (flickr)

In Haiti, aid workers may have saved thousands of lives by tracking the cell phones of displaced citizens.

Following the 2010 earthquake (which claimed the lives of over 200,000), and a deadly cholera outbreak that originated in a U.N refugee camp, public health researchers in the area discovered that they could harness Haiti’s burgeoning cell phone network in a unique way.

Researchers found that not only was it possible to anonymously track (via cellphone SIM cards) the movements of displaced citizens, but that in doing so they could also anticipate the spread of epidemics, NPR reports. This let aid and health workers reach areas of infection more efficiently, curbing the further spread and transmission of disease.

An additional benefit to utilizing the Haitian cell network was that medical workers were able to distribute health advice by way of text and voicemail messages to thousands of Haitians, tips on everything from re-hydration to breastfeeding infected babies.

Though this effort was one of the first of its kind, infectious disease investigators believe that similar techniques for future outbreaks around the globe have the potential to be equally effective. Add "epidemic control" to the consistently growing list of uses for mobile phones. At the pace that cellular and smart phone technology are developing, who knows what’s next?

Glasses were one of the first products to use microconsignment, which required training on reading eye charts and providing eye care. Photo:GoRun26 (flickr)

Chances are you're pretty familiar with microfinance. But have you ever heard of microconsignment? Microconsignment is similar to microfinance in a lot of ways, but with a unique twist. Basically, instead of giving an entrepreneur a loan to be repaid over an agreed upon period of time, the aim of microconsignment is to give access to a good or service to a community that is without.

For example, in a community where the nearest doctor might be a days drive away, a microconsignment group might work with an entrepreneur to open a shop where people can get their eyes tested and buy prescription eyeglasses. The entrepreneur gets training on how to do an eye exam and run a business, as well as the materials they need to open up shop and market their business. Only after the products sell, the entrepreneur pays back the initial cost using a percentage of his or her profits. Another key difference with traditional microfinance models is that much of the risk stays with the lender.

Greg Van Kirk first tried the microconsignment model in his days as a Peace Corps volunteer. He saw an opportunity, and decided to found Soluciones Comunitarias, a microconsignment institute operating in rural South America. The New York Times' wrote about the microcosignment pioneer in a recent post on their Fixes blog.

Yolanda Garcia was one of the first entrepreneurs to work with Soluciones Comunitarias, introducing glasses into her community in rural Guatemala. She admitted to the New York Times that her first attempts at selling were not hugely successful. Had she taken out a loan to buy the glasses that didn’t sell, Garcia may have had to take out more loans just to pay the first back. “Why put all that risk on somebody up front?” Malini Krishna, the vice president of development for Soluciones Comunitarias explained to The Times. “Why not help them put the glasses out there and then get repaid when glasses sell?”

Since product doesn’t always sell, business can be slow for the five year old company. However, Soluciones is already turning a sustainable profit. According to Tina Rosenberg, a New York Times contributor on social issues and solutions, it took Grameen Bank -- one of the founding microcredit institutions -- 18 years to reach the same point.

And Soluciones does something else right; it trains its employees well. Garcia, along with some of the other early entrepreneurs, is now a co-owner and operator of the company and trains new employees to become social entrepreneurs in their own communities.

The consignment model made all the difference for Garcia, who has gone from a housewife with a primary school education to a co-owner of a successful company. “If I had had to take out a loan I wouldn’t have done it,” Garcia said, “I always felt I wanted to do something, but we didn’t have the economic resources beyond what we needed for the day.”

Photo: adman_as (flickr)

How can you help the world's neediest people when you don't even know they exist?

Take Rio de Janiero's sprawling slum settlements, known as favelas. They contain maybe one-third of the city's population, but no one really knows for certain, and the official counts are probably too low. When you consider similar situations worldwide, there are perhaps more than a billion people whose governments have no official record of their existence, says Melanie Edwards.

Her company, Mobile Metrix, hires and trains local teenagers — in Brazil and other developing countries — equips them with handheld computers and sends them door-to-door to get lifestyle information on their neighbors via a 100-question survey.

The idea is that aid organizations, governments and corporations essentially make decisions on where to spend money based on unreliable numbers. Enter Mobile Metrix, which says it "connects the uncounted poor with companies and nonprofits that can meet their needs."

Part of the reason the model is viable is because Mobile Metrix is able to persuade corporations to support its work. When a dengue epidemic infected nearly 250,000 in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year, for example, Mobile Metrix teamed up with Johnson & Johnson to provide favela residents with anti-mosquito repellent and doorstep tips on malaria prevention.

Edwards says each young Mobile Metrix "agent" is paid better than a drug pusher on the streets of Rio and can gain professional skills and a sense of dignity.

"These are capable, untapped human resources. By believing in them, we dignify them and they dignify themselves," Edwards told Rob Katz of NextBillion.net. "We see our employees step into their power — to transform themselves and their community."

Today's Christian Science Monitor takes a look at the important role statistics play in prosecuting human rights abuses.