MobileDiagnosis® Model: Use of m-Technology in Rural Health Care and Education

The possibility of capturing high quality images directly from the microscope, and transmitting them for distance diagnosis purposes using a mobile cell-phone (m-phone), that we define MobileDiagnosis (MD), can significantly increase training opportunities and diagnostics quality while lowering costs. MD was born in 2008 to answer to an emergency in a malaria diagnosis in Lampedusa Island.

MD has been exported from the emergency to the daily routine and from telepathology to several diagnostic fields and to the education by involving and training 227 students, in 6 Countries, with 10 Courses of basic health and community care and with practical m-technology.

We help to create an economic and a social sustainable project in villages or in big cities, with equal opportunities and in a smart ethical new way to improve local life by promoting health care and education, contributing to rural development.

About Dr. Livia Bellina:

Dr. Livia Bellina, MD Pathologist, Affiliation: Founder and President of MobileDiagnosis® Not for Profit Association ,born in Palermo, Italy August 25, 1954. Medical Doctor since 1979. Since 1987, till now, she works for the National health System. In 2008 to confirm a diagnosis of malaria in a migrant arrived to Lampedusa Island, she sent the first images by a mobile.-phone with a MMS, to receive a remote support for her diagnosis. After that she started to study tropical medicine and international cooperation by creating with her teachers the first “expert” network of consultants.

She founded the MobileDiagnosis (MD), a not for profit association aimed at sharing knowledge and providing diagnostic support to health workers worldwide, by using mobile phone technology. The association also provides educational support and guidance on the use of mobile technology, mainly for resource limited and rural settings. MD Association has been included in the WHO GHWFA and the method has been included in the WHO Compendium of the innovative technologies addressed to the global wellness.

Since 2009 she worked teaching and sharing her method in several of more rural underserved and poor villages of developing countries in Uganda, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Madagascar, DRC and Thailand bordering Myanmar. Her goal now is to apply the MobileDiagnosis Method (educating, connecting, put in a network) together to the social entrepreneurship education , to improve the rural development and the rural community life.