Dr. Marc Mitchell, pediatrician and lecturer of international public health, founded D-Tree, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide healthcare to individuals in outlying regions of the developing world, where access is challenging. The organization provides mobile technology administered via cell phone to standardize clinical processes and elevate the level of care. The program provides an electronic decision tree to community-based healthcare providers, allowing them to enter patient data, navigate through symptoms, and arrive at a diagnosis including course of action specific to the individual. This system replaces paper-based protocols and, according to Dr. Mitchell’s data, provides more accurate diagnoses without protracting examinations.
In a number of ways, the creation of these electronic records will allow healthcare providers to ensure that preventative care, like vaccinations, are provided at the correct age/weight/season to maximize efficacy. Patterns of illness and infection on the individual, community, and national level may be tracked and accessed remotely for research. There is a scarcity of trained individuals in many such communities, and if this algorithm minimizes provider errors, it can certainly save lives.
While the technology provides a near-immediate solution at low cost, it might be best used as a temporary solution while healthcare providers are trained in earnest. To my mind, the people of a community will always be its greatest asset, and in them the investments of time and funds are best spent. Technology changes, fails, becomes obsolete. Transferring knowledge to a person instills value, both functional and intrinsic, to the individual and the community, and incorporates indigenous knowledge with prevailing western methodologies.
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