In May 2010 a white paper on mHealth was published by the Center for Global Health and Economic Development Earth Institute, Columbia University in cooperation with the mHealth Alliance.
This report identifies policy barriers and research gaps that undermine the field of mHealth and offers recommendations on how to strategically maximize its benefits. The policy paper Barriers and Gaps Affecting mHealth in Low and Middle Income Countries provides an in-depth analysis of the current challenges and obstacles hindering the meaningful implementation and scaling of mobile health (mHealth) projects aiming to strengthen health systems and attain global health goals.

The full report can be downloaded at:
www.globalproblems-globalsolutions-files.org/pdfs/mHealth_Barriers_White_Paper.pdf

The executive summary states:
There is growing momentum and enthusiasm to capitalize on the rapid spread of telecommunications infrastructure and uptake of mobile phones and mobile broadband services in low and middle income countries to support the achievement of global, national, district, community, and individual level health priorities. Still in its infancy, mHealth, the use of mobile technologies for health, runs the risk of not realizing its full potential due to small‐scale implementations and pilot projects with limited reach. To help shed light on these issues, the mHealth Alliance commissioned an in‐depth exploration of the policy barriers and research gaps facing mHealth. This White Paper, written by a team of researchers at the Center for Global Health and Economic Development at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, examines and synthesizes the existing mHealth literature to assess the current state of mHealth knowledge and identify barriers and gaps.

Text to Change was mentioned:
Make prevention an element of every health care interaction:
As mentioned previously, health care has traditionally consisted of curative care; however, stakeholders in health systems are beginning to realize that factors that increase the risks of developing or contracting diseases can be largely prevented. For this to happen on a large scale, prevention must be an element of every health care intervention. In the articles that fall in this category, some mHealth projects sought out opportunities to build upon existing prevention campaigns, such as Text to Change’s HIV/AIDS efforts in Uganda, and others developed strategies to improve patient/provider or provider/provider relationships. The non-profit nongovernmental organization (NGO) Text to Change uses mobile telephony as a medium to synergize the communication of HIV/AIDS issues, existing prevention campaigns, and other HIV/AIDS health services in Uganda. The main objectives of the pilot intervention were to scale up VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) uptake, bring about a behavioral change, increase the knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and facilitate monitoring and evaluation of current prevention programs. Text to Change developed an interactive SMS-based, multiple-choice quiz to improve knowledge of HIV/AIDS. Quizzes were sent by SMS to the 15,000 Celtel mobile phone users in the Greater Mbarara region who were targeted over the course of eight weeks. Between February and April of 2008, 2,610 of the 15,000 Celtel mobile phone users responded to one or more questions sent via text. Some questions received responses more often than others (e.g., the question "HIV is not present in a) semen, b) sweat, or c) blood" had the smallest number of responses with between 1,000 and 1,500 respondents, whereas "Is the HIV test accurate" had around 2,500 respondents). The trial indicated that it is essential to have an extensive marketing campaign, using radio, billboards, and newspapers, an introductory message containing an explanation of the program and explaining the ways in which anonymity is guaranteed, a shorter program duration so that people will not lose interest, and various technical improvements.