Naomi didn’t think anything was wrong when she was visited by Grace, a community health worker in Gairo, a rural community in Tanzania.
Her pregnancy had gone well and so far everything was normal, but when Grace asked whether she had felt the baby move, she paused and said yes but recently the movements had stopped. Grace was alerted and immediately referred Naomi to the hospital. At the hospital, Naomi was examined and an immediate c-section was done saving the life of the baby, Heron.
D-tree International is supporting many health workers such as Grace care for the health of women like Naomi and babies like Heron. We support health workers by designing mobile-based decision support software based on context-appropriate guidelines which helps them ensure that their clients receive care which is comprehensive, assessments which are correct, treatments which are appropriate, and thereby improve the chances of good health outcomes. Our mobile tools are carefully refined via field experience to ensure that they are practical for the important work of front line health workers, while still maintaining adherence to the national standards of care.
Although we are initially focused on improving the quality of care at the point it is given, we are not mere purveyors of “apps” but are pursuing the more ambitious goal of establishing systems in the widest sense which can provide connectedness and quality assurance structures to increase the chances not only of the health worker making the right decision at the point of care, but also the health worker being supported by and connected to the wider health system via active and informed supervisors, who themselves are monitored by district management teams helping to ensure requisite supplies.
All of this becomes a lot more feasible when supported by software and network technology, but it also involves paying attention to designing good incentive structures to ensure standard operating procedures are followed throughout the system. Technology helps again there: for example we are able to disburse money in pay for performance incentives to health workers automatically via a mobile money API. We partner with Ministries of Health and other health organizations to develop solutions for scale.
Does It Work?
Our programs have been able to demonstrate significant improvements in health worker performance, facility delivery rates and adherence to quality standards. Although very real challenges remain, these results demonstrate the potential of how mHealth systems can impact the lives of clients living even in the most hard to reach areas.
Join With Us
In 2012, together with Etisalat, D-tree won the GSMA award for Mobile Health Innovation for the Mobile Baby project in Zanzibar. The award has encouraged us to explore new partnerships with telecommunications companies and recognized our mobile health innovation, which combined decision support tools, community transport models and mobile money.
We are looking forward to exploring possibilities for collaboration at the Mobile World Congress this year. In particular, we would be keen to join with like minded organizations supporting improvements in quality of healthcare in low and middle income countries and visionary private sector partners developing the technologies which we exploit such as smartphones, tablets, point of care diagnostics, unique identification and mobile money.
Join us in creating a mobile health revolution. We are open to your ideas and suggestions for how we can improve access to quality healthcare in all parts of the world. Please see Dr. Tom Routen of Things Prime, a key technology partner, presenting on behalf of D-tree at this year’s MWC or connect with us on Twitter at @DtreeInt and contact Roshani Kothari at [email protected] to discuss partnership opportunities.