Hegde Shailendra Kumar B, Saride Sriranga Prasad, Kuruganty Sudha, Banker Niraja, Patil Chetan, Phanse Vishal
Piramal Swasthya Management and Research Institute, Hyderabad, India.
WHO South East Asia J Public Health. 2018 Apr;7(1):51-57. doi: 10.4103/2224-3151.228428.
Expanding mobile telephony in India has prompted interest in the potential of mobile-telephone health (mHealth) in linking health workers in rural areas with specialist medical advice and other professional services. In 2012, a toll-free helpline offering specialist medical advice to community-based health workers throughout Maharashtra was launched. Calls are handled via a 24 h centre in Pune, staffed by health advisory officers and medical specialists. Health advisory officers handle general queries, which include medical advice via validated algorithms; blood on-call services; grievance issues; and mental health support - the latter calls are transferred to a qualified counsellor. Calls requiring more specialist advice are transferred to the appropriate medical specialist. This paper describes the experience of the first 4 years of this helpline, in terms of the services used, callers, nature of calls, types of queries serviced and lessons learnt. In the first 4 years of the helpline, 669 265 calls were serviced. Of these calls, 453 373 (67.74%) needed medical advice and were handled by health advisory officers. Specialist services were required to address 199 226 (29.77%) calls. Blood-bank-related services accounted for 7919 (1.18%) calls, while 2462 (0.37%) were grievance calls. Counselling for mental health issues accounted for 6285 (0.94%) calls. The large-scale mHealth professional support provided by this helpline in Maharashtra has reached many health workers serving rural communities. Future work is required to explore ways to expand the reach of the helpline further and to measure its effectiveness in improving health outcomes.
印度移动电话业务的扩展引发了人们对移动电话健康服务（mHealth）潜力的兴趣，该服务有望将农村地区的卫生工作者与专业医疗建议及其他专业服务联系起来。2012年，一条免费热线开通，为马哈拉施特拉邦各地的社区卫生工作者提供专业医疗建议。电话通过浦那的一个24小时中心接听，工作人员包括健康咨询官员和医学专家。健康咨询官员处理一般咨询，包括通过经过验证的算法提供医疗建议、血液应急服务、投诉问题以及心理健康支持——后一类电话会转接给合格的咨询师。需要更多专业建议的电话则转接到相应的医学专家那里。本文描述了这条热线前四年的运营经验，包括所使用的服务、来电者、来电性质、所处理咨询的类型以及汲取的经验教训。在热线开通的前四年里，共接听了669265个电话。其中，453373个（67.74%）需要医疗建议，由健康咨询官员处理。需要专业服务来处理的电话有199226个（29.77%）。与血库相关的服务占7919个（1.18%）电话，而投诉电话有2462个（0.37%）。心理健康问题咨询占6285个（0.94%）电话。这条热线在马哈拉施特拉邦提供的大规模移动健康专业支持已惠及许多服务农村社区的卫生工作者。未来需要开展工作，探索进一步扩大热线覆盖范围的方法，并衡量其在改善健康结果方面的效果。
