Mobilizing the medical record is a high impact opportunity, EMR adoption has direct and well documented health impact. However, EMRs are rarely implemented successfully in poor areas because of hardware that is expensive, unfamiliar, or unavailable locally, lack of internet and hassles associated with data re-entry. These issues can be address by SIM based phones.

• EMR will be used more broadly and effectively if more health workers (not just physicians) gather and make use of medical data. Health workers are often out in the field where they do not directly contribute data to EMR.
• Data collected off-site is often recorded on paper; it must be entered into a database by a different (more trained with computers) person, in a different place, at a different time. Unnecessary steps increase confusion, reduce efficiency and accuracy.
• Patients currently do not remotely report health issues (I'm out of insulin needles, where can I get condoms?). This impeeds data collection in poor areas where transportation to a clinic may be a serious investment and many patients walk. Remote reporting would facilitate preventative medicine.

Our goal is to produce software that can:

• Use SIM-based mobile phones. They are cheap, durable, prevalent, require less training and are less likely to make workers a target for theft/mugging (relative to smart phones).
• Use OpenMRS, an open source EMR. OpenMRS manages hundreds of thousands of patients records; existing installations will be able to plug and play with our software, increasing our project's potential to scale.
• Health workers or patients send data via SMS, it will be added to patient's medical record. Physicians will be notified of urgent situations (a hemorrhaging home-based childbirth), and worker/patient may receive SMS advice from clinician or an automated SMS based on electronic records.
• Builds on, smooths interoperability with existing OSS like OpenRosa and Mesh4x.

• Data transfer optimized for low-signal environments.

After spending the first four days of November canvassing for a major liberal presidental candidate (guess who??), I immediately noticed how important door-to-door, face-to-face interaction was to the success of the campaign. The enthusiasm of a volunteer who is passionately committed to their cause is easily lost over an email or a text message, no matter how many exclamation points are used.

I also noticed how, despite the major advances in technology, there was a huge missed opportunity in the canvassing process. Thousands of sheets of paper were being printed out by organizers, written on by volunteers, and processed back at headquarters by data entry staff/volunteers. Not only was excess paper being used, but a number of volunteers were relegated to data entry, instead of being out on the field getting the vote out. It was all expertly organized and choreographed, but I couldn't help but think of some way to make it better...

Sondeo allows any non-profit or grassroots campaign to quickly collect canvassing data and interpret it, eliminating the need for data entry and significantly reducing paper waste. As a canvasser travels from door to door, they send the data collected to headquarters via SMS, and their results are immediately entered into a database.

Through any web browser, a lead organizer can create a new canvass, determine the questions to be asked, the responses that will be given, plan the routes that will be handed out, and print out lists and directions for the canvassers to use. Once the canvassers are out on the field, the lead organizer can monitor their results in real-time, see which areas are most responsive, which canvassers are most effective, and determine which areas will need more coverage in the future.

Sondeo will be open source, without any political affiliation or bias. It will allow for the quick import of an existing contact database, and export of the canvassing information collected for further analysis. By combining face to face interaction with instant data entry and monitoring, Sondeo will make the canvassing efforts of any organization cheaper, quicker and more effective.