Brazil slum study: Mobile health tech promising

(AP)—A study conducted in a Rio de Janeiro hillside slum says that using mobile health technology to monitor patients in poor urban areas could improve residents' access to health care while also reducing healthcare spending.

Under the New Cities Foundation's Urban E-Health Project, staff at a clinic in the Dona Marta favela was given a backpack with nine tools that they used to track blood pressure, glucose levels and other measurements during house calls to 100 elderly patients with chronic diseases and reduced mobility. The kit allowed the staff to provide fast, accurate on-site tests that led to improved treatment of high blood pressure, diabetes and other ailments.

The foundation said Wednesday that the mobile treatment led to hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of savings to Brazil's public health system.