Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unlikely to be met in most low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Smartphones and smartphone proxy systems using simpler phones, equipped with the capabilities to identify location/time and link to the web, are increasingly available and likely to provide an excellent platform to support healthcare self-management, delivery, quality, and supervision. Smart phones allow information to be delivered by voice, texts, pictures, and videos as well as be triggered by location and date. Prompts and reminders, as well as real-time monitoring, can improve quality of health care. We propose a three-tier model for designing platforms for both professional and paraprofessional health providers and families: (1) foundational functions (informing, training, monitoring, shaping, supporting, and linking to care); (2) content-specific targets (e.g., for MDG; developmentally related tasks); (3) local cultural adaptations (e.g., language). We utilize the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) MDG in order to demonstrate how the existing literature can be organized and leveraged on open-source platforms and provide examples using our own experience in Africa over the last 8 years.

Seventy-five percent of spiraling healthcare costs can be attributed to chronic diseases, making prevention and management of chronic conditions one of our highest healthcare priorities, especially as we organize for patient-centered medical homes. Collaborative patient self-management in primary care has been repeatedly demonstrated to be efficacious in reducing both symptoms and increasing quality of life, yet there is no consensus on what, how, when, and by whom self-management programs are best implemented. In this article, we argue that self-management interventions effectively span the continuum of prevention and disease management. Self-management interventions rest on a foundation of five core actions: 1) activate motivation to change; 2) apply domain-specific information from education and self-monitoring; 3) develop skills; 4) acquire environmental resources; and 5) build social support. A range of delivery vehicles, including group interventions, primary care providers, and advanced wireless technology, are described and evaluated in terms of diffusion and cost-containment goals.

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