Just read an article from the Times of India entitled "New tech to keep tabs on disease", where the new tech in question is the collection of data for health on mobile phones.

Of course, it IS new to collect health data on mobile phones, but it always amazes me how long it can take the global heath community (or the broader development community) to adopt and really utilize new technologies. Think about it: Palm Pilots -- the first widely available handheld computer, and the precursor to today's mobile phone/computers -- came out in 1994.

1994! Sixteen years ago. And over the past sixteen years almost NOBODY used them for collecting data: about 100% of health data was collected on paper 16 years ago, and that percentage has hardly budged in the intervening time.

So why is it that mobile data collection has just never taken off? I think until we figure this out we shouldn't have much hope that mobile *phone* data collection will do any better.

To me, it's that mobile data collection is always "new and exciting". It's cutting-edge and thereby complex: mHealth right now is something you ALWAYS need to hire a programmer to do FOR you, never something that you can do for yourself. And getting grants and paying programmers isn't easy to do. It's a big obstacle.

Look at the contrast with Microsoft Excel: it's not even a public health tool but it's been incredibly useful for people in public health who need to manage everything from survey data to lists of drugs. And it's the opposite of exciting: it's just a tool on your computer that makes it dead simple to manipulate numbers. And it is BORING. Nobody thinks of using electronic spreadsheets for health as an exciting "sHealth" project: it's just using the basic, simple, easy to use tools available to you.

Using mobile phones for making calls is like that: simple to do, no instruction manual needed. The technology is so boring it isn't worthy of note: it fades into the background so that you can focus on what you'd like to SAY on the call you're making.  

I think that for people to really use mobile phones widely for health data collection we're going to have to make that process as simple as using mobile phones to make calls: something simple, not worthy of note -- and definitely not something you need to hire a programmer for (or get a grant for)!  

We're going to have to make it boring.

[Proposed new slogan for EpiSurveyor: "incredibly boring and simple data collection on mobile phones: EpiSurveyor"]