mobile technology | ClickDiagnostics | mHealth
Leveraging Mobile Technology for Maternal Health in Gujarat, India
I’ll be going away to Gujarat, India this summer to work with ClickDiagnostics, a health & technology start-up that focuses on designing and implementing telehealth mobile solutions, specifically with the aim of enhancing the capabilities of community health workers to deliver cost-effective, high quality health services. In order to develop, pilot, and implement mobile health (mHealth) solutions that are sensitive to local needs, Click works directly with in-country partners. For the purposes of this project, Click will be partnering with SEWA Rural, a community health organization based in rural Gujarat, India.
The main aim of SEWA Rural’s Family Centered Safe Motherhood and Newborn Care Project (MNCP) is to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in rural Gujarat through its Community Health Project, which covers 168 villages and 171,000 rural and tribal inhabitants. The most critical component of the MNCP are CHWs, who are responsible for conducting home visitations with mothers in every village within SEWA Rural’s mandate. These women provide the following services: prenatal care and counseling, maternal and newborn monitoring and care, timely identification of complicated deliveries, and post partum care for mothers and young babies followed by family planning-centered counseling.
SEWA Rural has requested ClickHealth’s help and expertise in setting up appropriate health technology platforms to support community-based interventions related to their community health workers, specifically with respect to the development of the following:
- Tracking mechanisms for every pregnant mother and her newborn to ensure appropriate and timely delivery of health services
- Timely identification of the complications related to maternal or newborn care, in addition to provision of guidance to front line workers to appropriately manage such cases at the field level
- Prompt referral system for complicated cases to the base hospital
- Supervision and monitoring tools for tracking the work performed by the front line workers at the village level
- Generation and aggregation of CHW health reports at regular intervals
Based on these needs, the primary aims of this project are:
- to assess the knowledge base and existing responsibilities of community health workers (CHWs), specifically with respect to maternal, neonatal, and child health service delivery;
- to understand the field-level health data collection mechanisms, specifically in terms of what kind of information is collected, how, and for what purpose(s); and
- to identify potential mobile phone products and services that can sufficiently address the needs of the organization, CHWs, and local community.
As my work progresses, I will keep you updated with new insights – in the meantime, if you would like to meet up and / or learn more about the project, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me directly!
What’s New on NGO Post
5 Comments on “Leveraging Mobile Technology for Maternal Health in Gujarat, India”
Hi! I am a development worker based in the Philippines. I am just wondering if you could send me details on how the ‘mobilehealth’ concept works? How can it be sustained without external/ donor fund support? I will appreciate your response on this matter. Thank you
Hopefully this one should click! good luck!
I work as an Independent public health consultant ..in the process of conducting a review for an INGO …where i am looking at examples of mobile technology use in the field of health and in the area of family planning in particular. This review is part of a preliminary assessment for a project that proposes to develop, test and implement mHealth application for demand generation for modern family planning methods. .I was wondering if I could meet /talk about the activity that you are associated with SEWA in Gujarat. .I currently based in Mumbai.
Thanks
Hey Prerna, just stumbled upon your post while trying to research mHealth in India. I tried to find more about your work in Gujarat but couldn’t. It’s a topic that really interests me, and I would love to learn more about what you guys did, and about related projects in India. Do let me know if we could catch up. Thanks!
Hi, I am Rina Tripathi, I would like to know more about this Mhealth project as it can be used for neonatal care. My email ID is:
To know more about me google rina tripathi's blog
Am trying to research on Mhealth and how the projects take shape, am sad about the state of health care that new mothers and infants receive, please help me in identifying the population that need IT intervention. Would be grateful for any information you are willing to share regarding this project.
Regards
Rina Tripathi