Thanks for your latest message Claire,
"Healthcare workers sometimes use formal work phones informally, in other words to carry out tasks that are not formally regulated. For instance, some healthcare workers have been given work phones by NGOs for very specific purposes such as gathering data. However, they may also choose to use these phones informally, for instance to contact patients in ways that are not formally regulated."
The emphasis seems to be on "formal" versus "informal" use of mobile phones, whether they are personal phones or work phones. If that's the case, I'm still not quite clear on the distinction between formal and informal. For example, what kind of contacts with patients or health workers are regulated and what are unregulated? If a health worker is collecting data with a work phone and they use the phone to contact a patient or another health worker in a way that they believe is appropriate to their work, is this 'formally regulated'?
"Secondly, healthcare workers sometimes use personal in ways that are formally regulated, for instance through “Bring-Your-Own-Device” (BYOD) approaches. Any edits to the definition need to take both of these scenarios into account. In practice, I agree that the focus on personal phone use if the most relevant, but in that case, the definition still needs to make it clear that we are not talking about formally regulated BYOD approaches."
For me, “Bring-Your-Own-Device” is a new concept that I don't think we described in our systematic review [ https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD015705.pub2/... ]? Is this something that came up later in the primary research in Uganda? Please can you say a bit more?
Many thanks, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil AT hifa.org