ArticleBMC medical informatics and decision making2015
Experience of using mHealth to link village doctors with physicians: lessons from Chakaria, Bangladesh.
Article in BMC medical informatics and decision making, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Evaluating the Adoption of mHealth Technologies by Community Health Workers to Improve the Use of Maternal Health Services in Sub-Saharan Africa: Systematic Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2024Pooled it
- Factors Influencing the Acceptance and Adoption of Mobile Health Apps by Physicians During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2023Pooled it
- Health workers' perceptions and experiences of using mHealth technologies to deliver primary healthcare services: a qualitative evidence synthesis.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Social, Organizational, and Technological Factors Impacting Clinicians' Adoption of Mobile Health Tools: Systematic Literature Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2020Pooled it
- Relationship Among Village Doctor Training Level, Proximity to a Main Road, and Availability to Administer Intravenous Fluids for Diarrheal Illness.Open forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Beyond the regulatory radar: knowledge and practices of rural medical practitioners in Bangladesh.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Facilitators and Barriers in the Implementation of a Digital Surveillance and Outbreak Response System in Ghana Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Qualitative Analysis of Stakeholder Interviews.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- The Vinyasa Tool for mHealth Solutions: Supporting Human-Centered Design in Nascent Digital Health Ecosystems.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- Antibiotic prescription from qualified sources for children with fever/cough: cross-sectional study from 59 low- and middle-income countries.EClinicalMedicine · 2023Article
- Facilitating COVID recognition from X-rays with computer vision models and transfer learning.Multimedia tools and applications · 2023Article
- Barriers, facilitators and motivators of electronic community health information system use among health workers in Ethiopia.Frontiers in digital health · 2023Article
- Optimising the reach of mobile health messaging programmes: an analysis of system generated data for the Kilkari programme across 13 states in India.BMJ global health · 2022Review
- Safe Delivery application with facilitation increases knowledge and confidence of obstetric and neonatal care among frontline health workers in India.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2022Article
- A scoping review of the use of e-learning and e-consultation for healthcare workers in low- and middle-income countries and their potential complementarity.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Article
- Motivations Toward Using Digital Health and Exploring the Possibility of Using Digital Health for Mental Health in Bangladesh University Students: Cross-sectional Questionnaire Study.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- Systems E-approach for women at risk (SEWA)-A digital health solution for detection of high-risk pregnancies.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2021Article
- Can health information through mobile phones close the divide in health behaviours among the marginalised? An equity analysis of Kilkari in Madhya Pradesh, India.BMJ global health · 2021Review
- Design and Evaluation of a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program for Chinese Patent Medicine based on Knowledge Graph.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2021Article
- The Perceptions and Experiences of Mobile Health Technology by Older People in Guangzhou, China: A Qualitative Study.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- Digital Health and Inequalities in Access to Health Services in Bangladesh: Mixed Methods Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBangladesh is facing serious shortage of trained health professionals. In the pluralistic healthcare system of Bangladesh, formal health care providers constitute only 5 % of the total workforce; the rest are informal health care providers. Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) are increasingly seen as a powerful tool for linking the community with formal healthcare providers. Our study assesses an intervention that linked village doctors (a cadre of informal health care providers practising modern medicine) to formal doctors through call centres from the perspective of the village doctors who participated in the intervention.
methodsThe study was conducted in Chakaria, a remote rural area in south-eastern Bangladesh during April-May 2013. Twelve village doctors were selected purposively from a pool of 55 village doctors who participated in the mobile health (mHealth) intervention. In depth interviews were conducted to collect data. The data were manually analysed using themes that emerged.
resultThe village doctors talked about both business benefits (access to formal doctors, getting support for decision making, and being entitled to call trained doctors) and personal benefits (both financial and non-financial). Some of the major barriers mentioned were technical problems related to accessing the call centre, charging consultation fees, and unfamiliarity with the call centre physicians.
conclusionVillage doctors saw many benefits to having a business relationship with the trained doctors that the mHealth intervention provided. mHealth through call centres has the potential to ensure consultation services to populations through existing informal healthcare providers in settings with a shortage of qualified healthcare providers.
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