Qualcomm brings project to rural communities

Li Ruiping, a doctor from Xian county, Hebei province, said information technology was once beyond her reach.

"But now I can access medical information and services, even though I live in one of the most under-served areas," she said

Li is one of many doctors in Xian county who are benefiting from a healthcare project initiated by US-based Qualcomm Inc, a global developer of wireless technologies, and two partners: China's Xi'an Kingtone Information Technology Co Ltd and the China Children and Teenagers' Fund. The project includes a rural healthcare delivery service that provides doctors with 3G handsets and 3G-ready laptops, pre-installed with a specially designed healthcare application.

Running on China Telecom's CDMA EV-DO network, the service enables doctors to access real-time medical information, communicate with other physicians for remote medical consultations and better manage patient profiles from any location.

"Many patients in the county didn't receive effective treatment, since we lacked access to medical information and good medical equipment," said Li, who has been working as a rural doctor for more than 20 years.

Xian county, one of the poorer rural areas in China, has only 21 clinics to serve a population of 580,000. Most doctors don't specialize in certain fields; rather, they have to be responsible for treating all kinds of health conditions.

Clinic equipment generally is outdated. Some was purchased in the 1970s and has not been upgraded since.

But after the rural healthcare delivery service was started in August, Li said that she "is hopeful".

3G consulting

With the help of a 3G handset, she successfully made a diagnosis that she probably would not have been able to make in the past, she said.

"At the beginning, I didn't know what kind of disease it was," Li said.

"Then I videotaped my patient with the handset and sent it to doctors at other renowned hospitals through the Internet. We had a discussion later that day and eventually made a diagnosis. The 3G devices did help," she said.

Li was also grateful for the training she received.

As part of the healthcare project, training sessions are supported by the China Rural Doctors Training Center, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Health.

The training is designed to help doctors effectively use wireless devices to access information and equip them with better medical expertise by inviting professional physicians to give lectures.

The first training session, which lasted two days, was held in August. The next one will take place in April 2010.

Meanwhile, doctors in Xian county can find help on non-training days via the 3G devices if they have any technical or medical questions.

"We hope that we can improve the overall level of medical treatment in Xian county by receiving training from other doctors," Li said.

Wireless reach

The healthcare project in Xian county is part of Qualcomm's Wireless Reach initiative, through which Qualcomm introduces wireless technology to developing communities around the world.

Launched as a pilot project by Qualcomm in 2005, it has grown into a global initiative with 37 projects in 22 countries.

The project involves nearly 100 partners, including non-government organizations, universities, government institutions, development agencies and private-sector companies.

The objective of the initiative is to use 3G technology to strengthen economic and social development with a focus on education, entrepreneurship, healthcare, the environment and public safety.

"Qualcomm is built on the principle of giving back to the communities where we live and work, and we really believe 3G technology has the power to improve people's lives," said Shawn Covell, senior director of government affairs at Qualcomm and head of the Wireless Reach initiative.

"Wireless Reach is a natural extension of those principles- a great combination of our core competency in wireless technologies and our belief in helping other people," she said.

Qualcomm has had three other Wireless Reach projects in China. The first was to provide specialized "kid tracker" devices with GPS functions to help blind children better communicate with their parents and teachers.

Qualcomm then started an entrepreneurship project by giving farmers in rural Shaanxi and Guizhou provinces and Ningxia Hui autonomous region better access to crop prices, weather forecasts and other information.

Last year, Qualcomm implemented a three-phase program to provide 39 wireless computer classrooms for elementary and secondary schools in western China's rural areas.

"We have more projects coming on line in China which will focus on not only healthcare, but education," Covell said. "They will be exciting projects."

(China Daily 10/12/2009 page10)