General discussions : General : New weapon against tuberculosis: free cell minutes for patients who take medicine
>
New Topic
>
Reply<
Esato Forum Index
>
General discussions >
General
> New weapon against tuberculosis: free cell minutes for patients who take medicine
Bookmark topic
Researchers believe they've discovered a new weapon in the battle against tuberculosis: Free mobile phone minutes.
For years, doctors have struggled to get some TB patients to take all their medication, which generally involves a six-month regimen of multiple drugs.
Now a student-led group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a way to use cell phones to let patients test themselves. And if the tests show patients are following doctor's orders, they get rewarded with free minutes.
"We're piggybacking on one of the bigger rollouts of infrastucture out there, which is wireless technology and telecom technology," said Jose Gomez-Marquez, one of the project's leaders.
The system works like this: Patients test their urine using a strip that reveals a numeric code if it detects TB medicine. They then text message the code to their health care provider and get credit toward incentives such as free minutes.
S O U R C E
--
Posted: 2008-06-14 16:03:13
Edit :
Quote
Now that's a cracking idea!
Not entirely off-topic; there is a lot of opposition in the UK at the moment about an idea to 'pay' people suffering from obesity to lose weight. The more weight you lose, the more money you earn kind of thing.
Okay, this isn't strictly the same since you can't catch obesity. But I reckon that if offering incentives, like this TB scheme does, genuinely does have the desired result then why the hell not?
--
Posted: 2008-06-14 16:12:16
Edit :
Quote
Do you get a different code each time you test? How many minutes does it take to verify that the code isnt fake?
EDIT:
Studies show that 9.5 million people were infected in 2006 and only 1.7 miilion died.
How much then would be needed to award such a number of patients. Furthermore
10% died from skipping medication due to self monitoring
Wont this not increase deaths due to the same reason?
_________________
Please help
me find a signature of the
The firtst man on earth[ This Message was edited by: Twometre on 2008-06-15 07:29 ]
--
Posted: 2008-06-15 08:11:37
Edit :
Quote
Wont this not increase deaths due to the same reason?
No, because the offer of free minutes etc. gives them another reason to remember to take their medication
--
Posted: 2008-06-15 10:28:38
Edit :
Quote
New Topic
Reply
