Mobiles for Quality Improvement Pilot in Uganda data sheet 1016 Views
Author:
Pamela Riley and James BonTempo
Publication Date:
Nov 2011
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
USAID‘s Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project seeks to increase the role of the private sector in the sustainable provision and use of quality family planning/reproductive health and other health products and services. One of the areas of technical focus of the SHOPS project is to identify, deploy, and scale up promising uses of mobile technologies to improve health outcomes. Many developing countries have a severe shortage of health providers, and many of the providers who are working have only limited access to up-to-date clinical protocols, or face-to-face trainings. Mobile phones offer an innovative channel through which to provide cost-effective approaches for clinical training and support for improving quality of care.
SHOPS‘ partners Abt Associates, Jhpiego, and Marie Stopes International (MSI), collaborated in a mobile learning and performance support pilot called Mobiles for Quality Improvement (m4QI) conducted in Uganda during the period September 2010–August 2011. The goal of m4QI was to demonstrate the potential for positive behavioral change in service delivery by reinforcing face-to-face induction training lessons provided to Marie Stopes staff. Research supports the theory that spaced reinforcement of training combined with testing can significantly improve long-term knowledge retention and facilitate behavioral change.
The objectives of m4QI were to develop and test a technology-supported approach to performance improvement including processes for identifying performance gaps in adherence to clinical protocols, a platform to manage and automate the delivery and receipt of text message reminders and quizzes to address the gaps, and production of actionable data to improve effectiveness of supportive supervision and follow-up. To support scalability and replicability, the pilot platform was designed for users of low-end phones, and those without Internet access.
The Ugandan Ministry of Health has launched an initiative to digitize the country’s health management systems. Because mobile technology can be the fastest, cheapest means of collecting and analyzing data, especially in rural areas, the Minstry is embracing mobile technology to create a seamless system of health management and early warning techniques across the country. The Ugandan UNICEF country office has developed projects to work with the Ministry’s goal of digitizing the health systems. mTrac and Community Vulnerability Surveillance are two new projects that use SMS to gather and disseminate data and news, with a focus on health and public services.
Bad Services? Holding Officials Accountable with SMS, Radio, and TRAC FM data sheet 2345 Views
A recent radio poll at Sanyu FM in Kampala, Uganda, asked listeners what area of service delivery should be a priority: healthcare, education, security, sanitation, or transport. Using a new tool, TRAC FM, the station was able to solicit comments via SMS from listeners, discuss the issue on the air, and create and post online visualizations of the responses. The station received 103 SMS responses which showed that healthcare was the major concern for listeners, which accounted for 65% of responses.
With help from Text to Change and in partnership with local media organizations, TRAC FM provides citizens in Uganda with a platform to monitor, scrutinize, and discuss public service issues via SMS, radio, and online data visualizations. It does this via the TRAC FM software, a tool for Ugandan radio stations that is partially built on RapidSMS, an open source platform originally developed by UNICEF.
TRAC works in countries affected by poverty and conflict. Its sole purpose is to improve the welfare of people by enabling them to make informed choices and to hold their leaders accountable. TRAC gathers data to enhance transparency and informs people by unleashing the power of mobile communications.
SharedSolar: Mobiles and Micro-Grids For More Efficient Energy data sheet 3666 Views
It is an unfortunate irony that often the poorest people pay the most for the lowest quality energy. In many areas, the rural poor pay as much as 5 USD per month for kerosene or battery power. SharedSolar is a project that attempts to develop the technology, and business case to connect these populations to better, more traditional energy sources. It does so by leveraging existing mobile networks.
With SharedSolar, rural poor consumers make payments based on their usage by using a scratch card and adding credit via SMS. The system uses a micro-grid network to connect consumers to power, and each household uses a unique prepaid metering system. A group of up to 20 consumers (individuals, households, small businesses, or schools) are all located within a 50 meter radius of a single, central power source -- such as solar panels -- connected via an underground wire.
At the same time, the SharedSolar team is testing and developing its business model to show that a case exists for micro-grids and mobile energy payment. The team launched an initial pilot in 2010 in Pelengana, Mali and currently has systems set up in Uganda and Tanzania.
MobileActive.org spoke with Matt Basinger, project lead for SharedSolar, to learn more about the overlap of mobile technology and rural power.
Mobile Phones for Health Education in the Developing World: SMS as a User Interface data sheet 2926 Views
Author:
Catalina M. Danis, Jason B. Ellis, Wendy A. Kellogg, Hajo van Beijma, Bas Hoefman, Steven D. Daniels, Jan-Willem Loggers
ISSN/ISBN Number:
2147483647
Publication Date:
Jan 2011
Publication Type:
Journal article
Abstract:
Uganda suffers from a severe shortage of professional healthcare workers. Thus, programs aimed at prevention of disease are an important complement to the limited healthcare delivery system.
We analyze two deployments of an SMS-based HIV/AIDS education system that uses a quiz format to assess people’s knowledge of the disease, including its causes and methods of prevention. The deployments were to two groups in Uganda, one a sample of mobile phone users who live in a town in northwest Uganda; the other, workers at three factories in central and southeastern Uganda. The two samples had accuracy rates above chance levels and workers at the three factories had higher rates of participation (more individuals and more questions) than the sample selected from the cell tower service area. An analysis of incorrect answers suggested that while participants had some difficulty in matching the formatting required by the quiz, literacy did not appear to be a significant problem.
We discuss the results in terms of implications for using SMS as a user interface mechanism and explore the possibility of using social ties among participants as a way to promote the scalability and sustainability of this quiz-based education method.
Can you find me now? Refugees United Goes Mobile to Help Reunite Refugees data sheet 4062 Views
As part of a pilot project in Uganda, Refugees United is using mobile tools to help connect refugees who have been displaced by war, persecution, and natural disasters. Refugees United is a Danish NGO that designed and runs a web-based program to help people directly reconnect with missing loved ones. For the mobile pilot, it is working in conjunction with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), mobile phone maker Ericsson, MTN, a mobile telecommunications company in Africa and specifically MTN Uganda, as well as other partner organizations on the ground.
Text at Work and Stay Healthy: HIV/AIDS Prevention in the Workplace data sheet 1290 Views
Author:
Hajo van Beijma
Publication Date:
Feb 2010
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Through a pilot partnership with the Text to Change (TTC) initiative, HIPS is using an innovative tool to support companies in providing key prevention messages and education on HIV/AIDS to their employees and community networks – text messages. Early results are promising: the launch of the program resulted in a 40% increase in demand for sexual and reproductive health services from participant company clinics.
ChildCount: Monitoring Children's Health Through SMS data sheet 7871 Views
Many mobile projects struggle with scale and impact. While a mobile health project may run well with a small number of patients in one hospital, expanding the scope of a project until it is large enough to have real impact takes money, time, and widespread support of key stakeholders in a given community. ChildCount is well on its way to show scale and, so we hope, significant health impacts using mobile technology for patient support.
In a little over eight months, ChildCount has enrolled nearly 10,000 children under five in their catchment area into the ChildCount health monitoring system – an acceptance rate of more than 95%.
Impacts of Mobile Phone Coverage Expansion on Market Participation: Panel Data Evidence from Uganda data sheet 2669 Views
Author:
Megumi Muto
Publication Date:
Mar 2008
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Uganda has experienced a rapid increase of area covered by mobile phone service. As the information flow increases due to the mobile phone coverage expansion, the cost in crop marketing is expected to decrease, particularly more so for perishable crops, such as bananas, in remote areas. The article uses panel data of 856 households in 94 communities, where the number of the communities covered by the mobile phone network increased from 41 to 87 communities over a two-year period between the first and second surveys in 2003 and 2005, respectively.
The authors find that the proportion of the banana farmers who sold banana increased from 50 to 69 percent in the communities more than 20 miles away from district centers after the expansion of the mobile phone coverage. For maize, which is another staple but less perishable crop, the authors find that mobile phone coverage did not affect market participation. These results suggest that mobile phone coverage expansion induces market participation of farmers who are located in remote areas and produce perishable crop.
Enables Post Bank Uganda and SACCO members to access financial services through a network of ATMs, point-of-sale terminals and mobile phones to provide linkage banking to millions of people in Uganda who are unbanked (approx 80%).
The Java application enables Post Bank Uganda and SACCO clients to access financial information and trigger financial transactions from mobiles, ATMs, and GPRS-enabled point-of-sale terminals.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a server
Key Features :
Easy-to-use menus
GPRS communication
Real time access to information, services, and products
HealthyLife is a voucher program that reimburses existing service providers for services rendered. However, service providers are geographically distant, program management is information-intensive, and errors and other sources of delay affect service provision, quality of care, and payment timeliness. Claim Mobile helps streamline this voucher program.
ClaimMobile is a dual web-and-mobile-based platform designed to enable service providers to use mobile phones to digitally submit formerly paper-based claims to a web-based application. The web application is additionally designed to cope with Internet infrastructure limitations found in Mbarara, Uganda, and supports asynchronous synchronization between locally and globally available web servers to enable access to claims data even when Internet access may be prohibitively slow or unavailable.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Is a web-based application/web service
Key Features :
Self-verifying forms facilitate training
GPRS-based form submission and approval
In-clinic data management and analysis can be performed on phone
Smartphones for Output-Based Aid data sheet 1585 Views
Author:
Melissa Ho
Publication Date:
Apr 2008
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
Providing effective health care in poor countries is an essential component to economic development and poverty reduction. Unfortunately donors supporting this endeavor often find that resources given are not matched by desired gains.
The output-based aid (OBA) model of financing seeks to address this by paying healthcare providers directly for services rendered instead of paying for the service provision up front. However, the program management is information intensive, necessitating much paperwork to track and reimburse payment claims. Smartphones (mobile phones with advanced features) have the potential to alleviate this burden.
Based on recent work in Uganda we have identified some of the constraints and realities of the context in which these devices could improve the quality and speed of payment claims. In collaboration with Marie Stopes International and Microcare, we propose to deploy a number of smartphones for use in the Uganda OBA project, with dual goals of reducing claim processing time and improving communication between the health care providers and the management agency running the OBA project.
My post on Google's SMS services raised quite the storm in the waterglass. Erik Hersman took me to taks for, as he sees it, questioning that "if people who are claiming to help the poor should charge, and if so, should they make a profit."
However, this was not my point. My question was why, given the target audience as noted in the Google post and Grameen Foundation press release, for at least one of the services (SMS Tips) the cost per SMS comes at the highest premium price but is not advertised as such in the promotional literature and PR. Secondly, given that Google Labs in India makes a smilar SMS info service available at the regular cost of an SMS in India (which is exceedingly cheap), why does Google behave so differently in the African market, in essence colluding with the absorbitantly high costs of SMS there?
So I emailed Rachel Payne, Google’s lead in Uganda to clarify the costs that I only speculated about. Here is what she says, clarifying the pricing:
Google, in partnership with MTN Uganda, has launched 'Google SMS', a set of services that allows users in the country to access SMS information services. These include, for example, access to health and agriculture tips, weather information, and news and sports. Google offers these online information services aready on the web, but is now expanding them to SMS - however, at a high price per SMS.
"We seek to serve a broad base of people -- not only those who can afford to access the Internet from the convenience of their workplace or with a computer at home," said Rachel Payne, Google's country manager for Uganda, in a post on the Google blog.
In Uganda, medical clinics keep track of patient and medical payment records on paper. They then carry these often error-ridden forms to a management agency, where the information is manually entered into a database to receive reimbursements for the care provide. The process is tedious, time-consuming and leads to errors that can be costly for the local clinics. Melissa Ho, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California Berkeley School of Information in the United States, believes that a mobile phone can make the process more efficient and accurate, saving money and resources for local clinics.
On day two of MobileActive ’08 in Johannesburg, I attended Mobile Use By Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) by Jonathan Donner of the Technology for Emerging Markets Group, Microsoft Research India.
Donner explained that Microsoft Research conducts long-term research and development – it’s not tied directly to products. Its goals are to understand potential technology users in developing countries, and to adapt and design technology that contributes to social and economic development of poor communities.
Donners’ research focus was on tiny informal businesses with fewer than five employees. These businesses are post-agriculture and post-family farm. Example types of businesses that Donner examined include basket weaving, fruit stands, food sellers, and informal pipe fittings manufacturing.
Donner studied how mobiles have had a positive impact both in Kigali, Rwanda in 2002-2004, and Bangalore and Hyderabad, India from 2005-2007.
He found “information needs very different than those of my colleagues in Redmond.”
Mobile phones are providing organisations and advocates with new ways to reach their communities. Now the Gender Based Violence Prevention Network in collaboration with Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) will use text messaging to create awareness about violence against women in Africa.
Berhane Gebru is Program Director at AED-SATELLIFE, an international organization which aims to strengthen health care in resource-poor countries by providing disease surveillance solutions and health information distribution to rural healthcare workers using mobile technology. He took some time out from this week's meeting on mHealth and Mobile Telemedicine to describe SATELLIFE's current project in Uganda which equips rural health workers with PDA's and GPRS wireless access points in order to transmit their health data collection to the ministry of health. We also discuss an upcoming project, currently being field-tested, which would allow those same health care workers to make their disease surveillance reports using simple mobile phones.[Editor's note: A full case study of AED Satellife's project is written up in our recent report "Wireless Technology for Social Change," commissioned by the UNF/Vodafone Group Foundation Technology Partnership]
At the bottom of the post you can download an audio recording of our entire 20-minute conversation. This is an edited and abridged transcription.
Mobile phone businesses are transforming families and villages in Uganda, writes Tatum Anderson of the BBC. The article profiles Joseph Ssesanga, a 24-year-old entrepreneur who started a mobile call center in his family's home.
The business began as part of a loan from a microfinance institution, and has grown into a company that operates in six villages and employs other phone operators. Ssesanga even bikes around the village offering the phone service to his neighbors. He says that the family is much better off financially, and can now afford to pay costs like school fees.
The family business now operates in six villages, employs phone operators and even provides a phone-charging service for those with their own handsets. They were able to repay the loan in four months, and today can afford to pay school fees. "We were farmers, but seasons are a major problem. We grow vegetables, but sometimes they can be damaged and you lose everything," he said to the BBC.
