Leverage mobile technology and social networking to strengthen health systems

Alexander Finlayson, Katherine Hudson and Faisal Ali, all affiliates of MedicineAfrica, a social enterprise providing a platform for health care educational and research partnerships between Northern and Southern collaborators, write in a SciDev.Net opinion piece, "Health scientists in developing countries can use social media to tackle research priorities, ... build[ing] networks and shar[ing] the knowledge needed to make strategic progress towards strengthening health systems." They say that mobile technology can enable "direct interaction with patients, helping remote training of health care workers, and supporting the education of scientists," and that the use of social media outlets, such as Twitter, can "facilitate collaboration between scientists in developing countries," preventing duplication of research (9/15).