Mobile health app boosts eye care
Vula mobile app co-founders Dylan Edwards and Dr William Mapham have developed an app to improve the health service conditions in remote areas. The mobile app, Vula Eye Health, conntects remote health workers with medical specialists.
The app makes it easier for health-care workers in rural areas to carry out eye tests, connect with specialists and make referrals.
The app is already being used to make referrals to five hospitals across the country, including Tygerberg Hospital where Edwards and Mapham’s offices are based. Clinics in areas like Worcester and Bredasdorp now have access to specialists at Tygerberg through Vula mobile.
An estimated 80 percent of all blindness is preventable or curable and in the majority of cases blindness can be prevented or cured through simple, effective and inexpensive procedures like cataract operations. Mapham said the main cause of blindness isn’t a lack of treatment options, but rather a lack of access to decent health care.
Mapham saw the potential for technology to improve referral networks while working in a hospital in a rural area in Swaziland. “Inefficient referral networks are a drain on resources. We’re hoping that by applying mobile technologies to this issue, Vula can play a part in improving the way referrals are made and creating more robust health systems.”
Source: IOL