A roundtable and the elaboration of a roadmap for mHealth for diagnostic assistance in the clinical setting

At the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) in Stellenbosch, South Africa, a two-day roundtable meeting on mHealth for image-based diagnostic support took place in February 2017.

The meeting gathered a group of about 50 stakeholders from clinical, research, policymaking and business fields representing about 15 countries.

At STIAS, roundtables are meant to stimulate the cross-pollination of ideas by providing a forum for discussion amongst researchers, practitioners, public and private sector leaders, civil society and potential beneficiaries of research and its application or implementation.

At the 2017 roundtable the participants discussed questions like:

• How should the most important barriers to the implementation of image-based mHealth in the clinical setting be overcome?
• How can front-line health care workers be enabled to adopt image-based mHealth in their practice?
• Which are the key strategies to overcome organisational challenges to the implementation of image-based mHealth within the health sector?
• Which are the key strategies to overcome technical challenges in implementing image-based mHealth within the health sector?

At the end of the meeting, the participants agreed upon a number of strategies that could best help address the issues mentioned above. Those strategies will form the basis for the first roadmap on the topic of mHealth for image-based diagnostic assistance in the clinical setting.

The roadmap together with 8 other articles covering in part topics discussed at the roundtable will form part of a special issue in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Global Health Action that will be made available later this year.