Moca: Mobile Care

To start off with some background, I became involved in OpenMRS through Moca. Moca is a powerful remote telehealth package that integrates decision support, medical records, and imaging on mobile phones. Rural health workers use these phones to send patient data to city hospitals, where doctors are notified to send diagnoses back via text message.


Moca addresses the the challenges of developing countries in providing proper healthcare to their citizens stems due to poor record-keeping, long latencies in diagnosis, and a lack of trained physicians. Moca originated from an MIT course on mobile applications and has since flourished into a large interdisciplinary team of 25+ students and faculty who volunteer their time to push the project forward. With medical doctors, faculty advisors, MIT Sloan business students, media people, and software developers, we seek to build a fully integrated telemedicine solution for developing countries struggling with broken healthcare systems.

Below is a diagram that explains the Moca Workflow and how it integrates with OpenMRS. Doctor creates procedure on OpenMRS server (i.e. surgery follow-up questions, cervical cancer questions) and uploads it to Moca. Moca phone downloads the procedures and prompts the nurse with these questions. The nurse collects data from the patient and uploads it to the server, which the doctor retrieves and views. Then the doctor sends back a diagnosis via SMS.

Our team is partnering with the University of Philippines’ National Telehealth Center (NThC) to launch our first pilot in June 2009 in the Capiz province. However, we cannot just hand Moca to the Philippines and expect it to work. Proper integration of Moca into their existing healthcare system is critical to advancing telemedicine in their country. I plan to dedicate 6 weeks in the Philippines to developing a culturally sensitive business proposal on eHealth and telemedicine with realistic policies, frameworks, and financial models. I will draw on the expertise of doctors, health workers, and government leaders, while working to gain the support of key stakeholders from PhilHealth Insurance and the Department of Health.