Cell phones: tightening the communication gap in resource-limited antiretroviral programmes

Abstract

Stepping up telecommunications technology in resource-limited healthcare settings has been included as a World Health Organization/UNAIDS priority [1]. Wireless communications in the form of mobile (cellular) phones have obvious advantages to land-based telecommunications in these regions by bypassing traditionally meager, limited or costly infrastructures. They are already influencing personal and business communications on a wide scale in developing regions [2]. Do they also have a timely potential for use in healthcare? The answer seems obvious, but very little systematic research has been published on this topic in the medical literature