Costing data for implementing mHealth facilitated tuberculosis contact tracing in Uganda

Introduction Mobile health (mHealth) applications may improve timely access to health services and improve patient-provider communication, but the upfront costs of implementation may be prohibitive, especially in resource-limited settings. Methods We measured the costs of developing and implementing an mHealth-facilitated, home-based strategy for tuberculosis (TB) contact investigation (CI) in Kampala, Uganda, between February 2014 and July 2017. We compared routine implementation involving community health workers (CHWs) screening and referring household contacts to clinics for TB evaluation to home-based HIV testing and sputum collection and transport with test results delivered by automated short messaging services (SMS) We carried out key informant interviews with CHWs and asked them to complete time-and-motion surveys. We estimated program costs from the Ugandan health system perspective, using top-down and bottom-up (components-based) approaches. We estimated total costs per conta...引言 移动健康（mHealth）应用可提升卫生服务的及时可及性，优化医患沟通，但前期实施成本可能高得令人望而却步，在资源有限的环境中尤为如此。 方法 我们于2014年2月至2017年7月间，在乌干达坎帕拉评估了依托移动健康辅助的居家式结核（TB）接触者追踪（CI）策略的开发与实施成本。我们将两种实施模式进行了对比：一种为常规实施模式，即由社区卫生工作者（CHWs）筛查并将家庭接触者转诊至诊所开展结核评估；另一种为居家式艾滋病毒（HIV）检测、痰液采集与转运，并通过自动化短消息服务（SMS）推送检测结果。我们对社区卫生工作者开展了关键知情人访谈，并要求其完成时间与动作调查。我们从乌干达卫生系统视角出发，采用自上而下法与自下而上（基于组件）法估算项目成本，并估算了每名接触者的总成本……