Mhealth program created to assist victims of Deepwater Horizon

mhealth

mhealthThree years later, the Louisiana disaster is still contributing to medical conditions in the state.

Though there has been three years that have passed since the Deepwater Horizon disaster off the shores of Louisiana, there are many people in the state who are still suffering from medical problems as a result to their exposure to the oil spill, and an mhealth program has been developed in order to assist these individuals.

The hope is that this mobile friendly medical program will be helpful to those who were hardest hit.

The mhealth program was announced by Health eVillages. This program is a part of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights as well as Physicians Interactive. In the announcement from the program, they stated that they will be focusing their greatest efforts on the regions of Southwest Louisiana, which were the hardest hit by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The assistance will come in the form of handheld mhealth devices with specialized content.

The mhealth devices have been programmed specifically with medical reference content that will be helpful to the victims of the disaster. This includes video instruction from some of the leading medical professionals in the world.

The Health eVillages organization is a nonprofit and is therefore quite limited in its financial resources. Until the mhealth program, the Teche Action Clinics in Louisiana relied on books to inform its doctors and nurses, as well as intermittent internet connections. This was the extent of their medical references and support tools for making clinical decisions. Now, these professionals, who are working in four different parishes that were most heavily struck by the spill, will be able to connect right away to the resources that they need to make the right decisions.

The mhealth program is based on the use of both devices and apps that are geared toward assisting professionals and victims in these regions. According to the vice chairperson and CEO of Physicians Interactive, Donato Tramuto, who is also the Health eVillages founder and chairperson, “We are building these mobile devices and preloading them with information that is specific to dermatological diseases as a result of a toxic chemical spill.”

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