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Strengthening Private Sector Health Providers: mHealth Implications

In sub-Saharan Africa, private providers play an important role in the delivery of health care to people of all wealth quintiles. However, in many countries, private providers are not well organized and sometimes isolated in rural areas; they often operate in parallel to the public health system; and they have limited access to training opportunities. This presentation discusses how mobile phone technology has the potential to address some of these issues. It reviews the findings from a randomized control trial that looked at how text message reminders received in the weeks following a training course impacted providers' retention of information learned in the course. It was presented at the mHealth Summit in Washington as part of a panel on health workforce capacity development.