Teledermatology Solutions Though Mobile Phone

The department of health in Mongolia faces economical, infrastructure and human resource constraints. Mongolia has very few tertiary care centers and a few trained specialist, particularly dermatologists, which are largely located in Ulaanbaatar. In addition, Mongolia has about 50 percent of population in rural area. There is a need to extend the reach of the limited, largely urban specialist to the rural populations in order to ensure adequate health care for the underserved. Method Taipei Medical University (TMU) and Sana, in close collaboration with dermatologists at Dermatology department, Health Sciences University of Mongolia (HSUM) are proposing an innovative method of providing decision support to health care workers at remote clinics by linking them to dermatologist at Dermatology department, HSUM by using mobile phones. Briefly, a series of forms based questions and prompts displayed on mobile phones will be used to guide health care workers to assess patients following treatment and to collect information on each patient，s health status including photos of infected sites. This information will be sent to an Open source electronic medical record (OpenMRS) for access by a dermatologist, who can route a recommendation for treatment or referral back to the health care worker. As a starting point, this pilot project will focus on the Dermatology department, Health Sciences University of Mongolia and 10 soums from two Aimags. Anticipate Results The Primary objective of this project is to provide better access to healthcare at rural clinics in Mongolia. In particular, the focus will be on capacity building for health workers at the remote clinics and also improving follow-up of the patients with dermal problem in the rural villages by providing expert advice to health care workers via mobile phones linked to dermatologist at Dermatology department, HSUM. The aim is to aid health care workers with information to make better decision about which patients to refer to Dermatology department, HSUM and which patients to treat locally and with tools to provide better diagnosis and treatment.