Author: Amanda Giasson

A software kit developed by Medic Mobile can be used in any type of environment to support healthcare.

Mobile Health (mHealth) provided by Medic Mobile is improving healthcare accessibility and quality in Africa. Using VMware, the American non-profit technology company, specializing in mHealth, developed a special software toolkit. This toolkit can be used in just about any environment and supports any language. It also functions with internet connectivity and without it, in the cloud or locally.

The software toolkit is giving African’s access to quality healthcare in the remotest parts of the continent.

The web and mobile tools work on a basic cellular phone. The software is giving health workers the ability to track disease outbreaks, register pregnancies, communicate emergencies, communicate with patients and keep stock of medicines.

The Medic Mobile solution is Linux-based and is made possible through a mobile network virtualized by VMware, running on VMware Player. The toolkit enables healthcare workers to gather and transmit patient data wirelessly via basic cell phones to the central clinic. This significantly cuts down on travel time and cost while making the delivery of quality healthcare better.

Medic Mobile CEO Josh Nesbit stated that the organization’s vision “is that the things that we know save lives should be made accessible to everybody, no matter where they are, no matter how much money they make, no matter to what social group they belong. The vision is global health equality.”

Since the mobile health technology has been implemented, healthcare has improved in Africa.

For instance, in Uganda, infant mortality rates continue to decrease every year. One of the major reasons for this is community health workers can provide better care. They can register pregnancies through a simple text message to the Medic Mobile system. They can provide details including the patient’s name, estimated due date and risk factors. A patient ID is automatically generated by the system and sends automated reminders to both health workers and patients, regarding scheduled appointments. If the appointment is missed by the patient, the system will notify the health worker to followup with the patient.

Presently, over 9,000 healthcare workers are using mobile health tools from Medic Mobile to aid over five million people in 23 developing countries. Using these tools, the healthcare workers are achieving solid results.

Move over Candy Crush, Pokémon Go has become the biggest mobile game in the US.

Pokémon Go has been steadily breaking records since the first day it was released. The augmented reality scavenging game broke download records on its launch day. Now, the game has 21 million active daily users in the United States. It is the nation’s top mobile game, successfully surpassing Candy Crush Saga’s 20 million peak active user total.

Pokémon Go may even surpass SnapChat.

In addition to leaving Candy Crush in its dust, Nintendo and Niantic’s crown jewel is also squashing other hugely popular mobile games. Both Supercell’s Clash Royale and Slitehr.io were big candidates for 2016’s top mobile game title. Not anymore. These games don’t have a chance to compete with the all-out sensation that Pokémon Go has become.

In fact, according to data from SurveyMonkey Intelligence, the Pokémon mobile game phenomenon is predicted to beat the number of Snapchat active daily users on Android devices within the next couple of days.

If this should happen, the augmented reality mobile game will also surpass Google Maps active daily Android users. More smartphone users will use maps to find Pokémon than anything else. This is quite remarkable to say the very least.

This top mobile game is even more engaging than Facebook.

The AR game doesn’t only have more active daily users than any other mobile game. It is also proving to have better average user engagement than social media giant Facebook. A news article from Forbes noted that according to Sensor Tower data, the game is more engaging and taking up more user time than Facebook.

If Pokémon Go continues with its latest trend, it will no doubt continue to become more popular than social media apps. It should be noted, however, that even though the game is toppling social media apps, it isn’t surpassing other mobile games in terms of time spent playing. For instance, the average Game of War player spends 2 hours daily playing. Even Candy Crush Saga players average approximately 43 minutes daily, which still exceeds Pokémon’s 33 minutes daily average.

Pokémon Go will soon be launched in other major countries and has recently been released in Germany. It will be interesting to see if the game manages to claim the top mobile game spot in these other countries as well.