In response to the need for access to life-saving surgical care, the World Health Organization's Emergency and Essential Surgical Care rogram has developed and launched the 'Integrated Management for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care'(IMEESC) toolkit via a mobile phone application. The toolkit will make available key resources in obstetric and surgical care literally at users’ fingertips.

The IMEESC toolkit was launched in late November 2015 at the annual conference of the Ethiopian Surgical Society, which brought together surgeons, emergency surgical officers, surgical nurses and anaesthetists – all primary users of the product.

Surgical care is an essential component of primary health care. Skills in surgery, trauma, anesthesia, and obstetrics are necessary to manage conditions such as obstructed labour, injuries, and other emergency surgical conditions. These conditions are treated readily in the developed world but often result in avoidable death and disability in the developing world. The global burden of surgical conditions is estimated to account for 11% of the world's disability adjusted life years (DALYs). Lack of appropriate training among health care providers must be addressed if this burden is to be alleviated.

Surgeons in Ethiopia often have to search printed textbooks for reference and have to go page by page looking for the information they need. This can be a daunting and tedious task as it is time-consuming and textbooks aren’t always readily available. The alternative of searching online for materials is not in most cases a practical option as internet connectivity is not always available or reliable.

The mHealth mobile application, which can be downloaded on Android or IOS mobile phones, offers a range of resources from manuals, protocols, guidelines, equipment and supplies list to analysis tools and videos. Users can easily update the information and data on this application to keep up with quickly evolving medical evidence and tools.

The application enables faster, easier, more secure and ultimately better access to surgical information, and is easy to search by topic as it uses meta keyword for search functions.

All categories of healthcare providers can use this novel application, made available this way in Ethiopia for the first time. Surgeons, obstetricians, emergency surgical officers, anesthetists, scrub nurses, undergraduate students and postgraduate residents can all benefit from the information and tools contained in the application.

The toolkit was launched at the United Nations Economic Commission (ECA) conference center on November 27 & 28, 2015 during the annual assembly of Ethiopian surgical society members which are the primary users.

Click to download the mHealth mobile application

Technical Contacts: Mr Getachew Sahlu;  sahlua [at] who.int ; +251 912 500 769  or Dr Luwam Teshome;  teshomel [at] who.int ; +251 911 663 707

Communication Contact: Loza Mesfin Tesfaye ;  %20tesfayel [at] who.inttarget="_blank" ; +251 911 144 194

Photos: WHO Ethiopia/ Loza Mesfin