Using Digital and Mobile Technology to Create an Affordable Community-Rooted Community Health Service for Poor Remote Settings

The project will involve a community health service focusing on reducing neonatal and under 5 mortality and morbidity rates. It will build on a collaboration with 501 Village Health Team members (VHTs) to improve awareness and demand for healthcare services in the catchment area. The VHTs are key in linking the community to health facilities. We propose to enhance these linkages by forming an electronic messaging platform where households are able to remotely and directly consult health workers and VHTs using phone SMS. This platform will facilitate screening high risk pregnancies right from the villages, improve communication for emergency referral for obstetric and newborn care, monitor and follow up all newborns in the area. This will address the key causes of neonatal and child death identified by previous work including prematurity, birth asphyxia, pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria. We shall use the hospital’s rich and diverse set of operational databases, including all health and mortality data gathered from the communities, to target efforts most on parts of the population with poorest health outcomes across a wide set of indicators, and to design health messages. We shall use latest mobile medical equipment to maximize impact. We shall train 501 VHTs and reach an estimated 70,000 people of the catchment area with particular emphasis on 12,000 children and 15,000 women of child bearing age. The project aims at reducing the under 5 CMR from 120 annual deaths by 20%.