The mHealth Alliance is joining forces with a global consortium of organizations and vendors to push mHealth as a means of improving child health in developing countries.

The alliance joined the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) at a June 14 event in Washington D.C. to announce the launch of mPowering Frontline Health Workers, billed as "an innovative public-private partnership designed to improve child health by accelerating the use of mobile technology by millions of health workers around the world."

"Mobile technologies present an incredible opportunity to provide frontline health workers with immediate access to timely and relevant health information and tools they can use to improve and save the lives of millions of children," said Patricia Mechael, executive director of the mHealth Alliance, in a press release. "This new partnership will empower frontline health workers by expanding the use of appropriate, cost‐effective and sustainable mobile technologies in Africa, Asia and Latin America."

Mechael, a keynote speaker at last December's mHealth Summit in Washington D.C. (of which the mHealth Alliance was an organizing member), said then that mobile technology has the potential to positively impact millions of lives in developing parts of the world, where it is seen as a vital tool to the delivery of healthcare. That point was also made in a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which indicated developing nations are accepting and adopting mHealth tools and technology at a better and faster rate than developed nations.

"Over the past few years, the mHealth field has made significant progress by gaining public attention, developing innovative models and systems and building the evidence base to demonstrate operational efficiencies and positive impact on health outcomes," Mechael wrote in a commentary piece for the mHealth Summit's show dailies. "Yet there is much work to be done to address the persistent constraints on the advancement of mHealth, constraints that continue to limit the potential mHealth can have on the world."

"Today mobile technology can be used to improve health systems and outcomes. mHealth can deliver vital information to expectant mothers, track medication supplies and avoid stock-outs, guide continuing medical education, guide medical decisions and support remote diagnoses," she added. "I believe that one day individual citizens and health workers alike will be able to engage seamlessly with health systems via mobile technology."

The mHealth Alliance will serve as the partnership secretary for the other 10 founding members: USAID, UNICEF, the Frontline Health Workers Coalition, Absolute Return for Kids, the Praekelt Foundation, the MDG Health Alliance, Qualcomm, Vodafone, Intel and GlaxoSmithKline.

Officials say the partnership, with a three-year plan of action in mind, will target so-called "frontline workers," such as nurses, midwives and community health workers, who are often the first and only link to healthcare for people – especially children – in developing nations. The goal is to empower these workers with mobile technology, ranging from smartphones to tablets and laptops equipped with mHealth applications, to perform a variety of tasks including data collection, diagnoses, case management, referrals and the promotion of healthy behaviors.

The partnership has six goals in mind:

1. Crowdsource innovative health content from various sources;
2. Create an online library of downloadable digital health content that can be accessed by organizations in developing countries;
3. Produce a digital dictionary to enable integration and standardized reporting across multiple mHealth applications;
4. Accelerate the sustainable expansion of mHealth for frontline health workers in at least three developing countries;
5. Rigorously evaluate partnership impact; and
6. Share experiences through a virtual global learning platform.

The mHealth Alliance is hosted by the United Nations Foundation and was founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, Vodafone Foundation and UN Foundation. The alliance now also includes HP, the GSM Association, and Norad among its founding partners.