Tag-Along With the Africa Cancer Foundation
Last week on Friday we had the privilege of seeing first-hand the work of the Africa Cancer Foundation during a two-day screening at Meru Primary School. Despite the dreary weather, the turnout was excellent. Almost 350 men and 200 women had shown up by the time the day was over!
The Africa Cancer Foundation is a non-profit organization that promotes cancer awareness and prevention by early detection, provides support to cancer patients and caregivers, and is involved in the development of guidelines and protocols for cancer diagnosis, treatment and healthcare provision.
With the increase in the uptake of smartphones and the increasing coverage of mobile networks, the foundation has come up with a smartphone app for the collection and storage of the data collected during cancer screenings. A smartphone with the app installed is given to the volunteers. They then use these to gather and send information to a central cloud.
BRCK Providing Connectivity for Uploading Data
The name of the patient, age, phone number and intelligence like drinking and smoking habits is collected and even images from, for example, cervical cancer screenings, can be stored and transmitted using the app.
Mobile ODT (Offline Data Transfer) Device is a smartphone-enabled medical device that is used to detect Cervical Cancer.
Initially, this process required each phone used to have a line and an individual service plan, which was expensive and inconvenient. That is where we stepped in. In four of the data collection points – the reception, breast cancer screening, cervical cancer screening and prostate cancer screening rooms. One BRCK’s connection is shared between four or five people, thus minimizing the overall costs of data.
When you imagine internet connectivity in a people-driven context, you seldom remember that it can be used not just for social media or Education. It also makes it easier to store and retrieve health information, use that becomes more profound when dealing with a disease like cancer where early detection and prevention is a huge factor in minimizing incidences.
The BRCK is not just a device to keep you online but also one that can be used to do good, as we experienced first-hand during the cancer screening on Friday. The ability to set-and-forget a BRCK allows you to focus on what is most important to you, and it allowed the volunteers to focus on their potentially life-saving jobs.
We had fun; we were honored at the invitation, and we hope to do it again sometime soon! Please follow The Africa Cancer Foundation on Twitter for screening dates and locations. Who knows? You just might bump into us 😉
An announcement is coming up soon about how we will continue doing this sort of work through BRCK.org. If you are interested in partnering with us, do contact us at [email protected] and also on Twitter via @brcknet.