National surveillance using mobile systems for health monitoring: complexity, functionality and feasibility

Background Although the use of technology viz. mobile phones, personalised digital assistants, smartphones, notebook and tablets to monitor health and health care (mHealth) is mushrooming, only small, localised studies have described their use as a data collection tool. This paper describes the complexity, functionality and feasibility of mHealth for large scale surveillance at national and sub-national levels in South Africa, a high HIV-prevalence setting.