TRIMESTER - Rotunda Library Newsletter Sept Supplement 2012 | Page 6

6 Trimester Rotunda Library Newsletter WHO: Status of mHealth in member states Only five years ago who would have imagined that today a woman in sub-Saharan Africa could use a mobile phone to access health information essential to bringing her pregnancy safely to term? Mobile phones are now the most widely used communication technology in the world. They continue to spread at an exponential rate - particularly in developing countries. This expansion provides unprecedented opportunities to apply mobile technology for health. How are mobile devices being used for health around the world? What diverse scenarios can mHealth be applied in and how effective are these approaches? What are the most important obstacles that countries face in implementing mHealth solutions? mHealth: New Horizons for Health through Mobile Technology, a WHO publication includes a series of detailed case studies highlighting best practices in mHealth in different settings. The publication will be of particular interest to policymakers in health and information technology, as well as those in the mobile telecommunications and software development industries. Embryo Scientists and educators have used the Carnegie Embryo Collection, housed at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, to define normal human embryo development for decades. A database, called the Virtual Human Embryo, has been created to provide digital serial sections of human embryos from the collection. The Embryo App uses mobile telecommunication and multimedia technologies to add interactive capabilities to the digital information, enhancing our understanding of embryo development. Features at a glance: • • • • videos showing human fertilization photo micrographs of early stages of embryo development Stages (1 to 23); digital images of the early stages both in 2-D and 3-D using visual stack dissections pregnancy calculator Embryo is available on the iPhone and iPod Touch. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/ publications/2011/9789241564250_eng.pdf