Catholic Relief Services' maternal and neo-natal health monitoring program in Uttar Pradesh, India is incorporating mobiles into its work. The pilot project, which launched in June 2009, uses mobiles to increase volunteers' ability to share and gather health information.
The program uses SMSs to allow ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists who are local volunteers) to report statistics on maternal and neo-natal health metrics. According to O.P. Singh, who gave a presentation on the program as part of the SHOPS/mHealh Alliance online conference, several problems in the current system led to the adoption of mobiles: the existing paper system was difficult to use, workers at village and block levels had limited access to information from headquarters, and the paper system was slow. The organization hoped that incorporating mobile phones would give the volunteers a better sense of the health landscape, since they would have access to real time information and be able to instantly share their results. During the presentation, Singh illustrated the system with the following graph:
The system allows the ASHAs to send a coded message (with shorthand numbers and letters standing in for larger phrases) that convey information about events (births and deaths), gender, location, the ASHA in charge of reporting, and cause of death. See the chart below for Singh’s representation of the system:
Despite the popularity of the program, Catholic Relief Services has faced several challenges with it. The lack of familiarity with mobile phones and low literacy levels among the ASHAs means that only 35% of the ASHAs are currently able to fill out the SMS forms without outside assistance. Furthermore, because the program is still in the pilot phase, the mobiles are an add-on to the ASHAs regular duties (meaning that although the ASHAs are using mobiles to report, they are also still filing out the paper forms).
To combat these challenges, the group has outlined several future objectives as it develops the project. These include a more intuitive system and better mobile apps for the ASHAs; and to eventually do away with the double reporting system in order to save the ASHAs time and work. The goal is to create a streamlined, instantaneous reporting system that allows volunteers on the ground to share and receive information from a central database in order to provide the best care possible for pregnant women, new mothers, and newborn children.
Texting with a Purpose: Catholic Relief Services in India Locations
Catholic Relief Services' maternal and neo-natal health monitoring program in Uttar Pradesh, India is incorporating mobiles into its work. The pilot project, which launched in June 2009, uses mobiles to increase volunteers' ability to share and gather health information.
The program uses SMSs to allow ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists who are local volunteers) to report statistics on maternal and neo-natal health metrics. According to O.P. Singh, who gave a presentation on the program as part of the SHOPS/mHealh Alliance online conference, several problems in the current system led to the adoption of mobiles: the existing paper system was difficult to use, workers at village and block levels had limited access to information from headquarters, and the paper system was slow. The organization hoped that incorporating mobile phones would give the volunteers a better sense of the health landscape, since they would have access to real time information and be able to instantly share their results. During the presentation, Singh illustrated the system with the following graph:
The system allows the ASHAs to send a coded message (with shorthand numbers and letters standing in for larger phrases) that convey information about events (births and deaths), gender, location, the ASHA in charge of reporting, and cause of death. See the chart below for Singh’s representation of the system:
Despite the popularity of the program, Catholic Relief Services has faced several challenges with it. The lack of familiarity with mobile phones and low literacy levels among the ASHAs means that only 35% of the ASHAs are currently able to fill out the SMS forms without outside assistance. Furthermore, because the program is still in the pilot phase, the mobiles are an add-on to the ASHAs regular duties (meaning that although the ASHAs are using mobiles to report, they are also still filing out the paper forms).
To combat these challenges, the group has outlined several future objectives as it develops the project. These include a more intuitive system and better mobile apps for the ASHAs; and to eventually do away with the double reporting system in order to save the ASHAs time and work. The goal is to create a streamlined, instantaneous reporting system that allows volunteers on the ground to share and receive information from a central database in order to provide the best care possible for pregnant women, new mothers, and newborn children.
Post new comment