mHEALTH-INNOVATE (55) Mobile apps (5) RehApp (Rehabilitation App) (4)

2 May, 2022

Dear Michele,

Just some short answers to your 3 questions. Please write me via my e-mail address for detailed information:

"How did you find the App builder and how much does he/she charge? It would seem to easy to approach this person." Answer: it is essential to form a team with the App Builder and work closely with this person. IT staff promise you that everything is possible. but they forget to tell you that it often is at high costs as well and all of a sudden there may be a lots of additional costs because of misunderstandings. We organized - after negative experiences with the building of the first RehApp (including the RehApp-CP) - a competition and shortlisted 3 companies who were invited to give a pitch on basis of a proposal submitted to us.   

"What were some of your biggest hurdles?" Answer: to work with loads of people from various parts of the world. For each of the 21 disability chapters we work with a team of 5 to 7 professionals, people with disabilities and INGOs and this is all done on a voluntary basis so setting and meeting deadlines has been at time a big challenge. To make sure that the IT staff clearly understood what we as professionals wanted the App to do… the information part was not so much a problem but the development of the interactive part based on the rehabilitation cycle with essential client/beneficiary information and the linkages between the various parts (assessment, conclusion, goal setting, selection of relevant interventions contributing to the goal(s) and the monitoring part did take far more time than anticipated.  NB: just an information App is simple to make but on basis of experiences with the first version of our App and loads of discussions we realized that fieldworkers (management) and ultimately beneficiaries would mostly benefit from an interactive App that had to be used on a daily basis. We are now in a phase that we want to research outcomes (on decisions making and performance of field workers) and impact (e.g. improved functioning , participation, quality of life in the lives of the beneficiaries)  and have discussions with various universities about this.

"Do you think WHO would get involved?" Answer: we are not yet sure. We hope so and we have a senior official of the WHO giving the keynote address at the launch. One of the complications is that we are concerned with disability and rehabilitation from a comprehensive and broad perspective (following the entire ICF and all domains in life) and the WHO is concerned with rehabilitation as part of universal health coverage (in a narrow health-related paradigm as formulated in the Rehab-2030 action plan)

Hope this information is useful to you but again please feel free to write me personally for details.

Warm regards,

Huib Cornielje

Director Enablement

Editor-in-Chief DCID Journal see: https://dcidj.org/)

Chair: Foundation Cerebral Palsy Africa (CPA) see: https://www.cerebralpalsyafrica.eu/

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2408AN Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands

Mobile: 0031 – 6 28485083

E-mail: h.cornielje@enablement.nl

Skype: enablement

Internet:

www.enablement.nl

http://mmenable.wixsite.com/inclusionandwater

https://www.inclusive-livelihood.com/

HIFA profile: Huib Cornielje is director of Enablement, The Netherlands. Professional interests: Disability and Development - rehabilitation\ Community Based Rehabilitation Impact studies Monitoring and evaluation. h.cornielje AT enablement.nl