About mHealth4Afrika

mHealth4Afrika (2016 – 2019) is a collaborative Research and Innovation project co-funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020 (Grant Agreement No: 688015).  Click here to watch a video on mHealth4Afrika motivation, methodology and achievements to date.

Focus

In the context of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3), governments around the world are working towards both increasing access to and strengthening the impact of healthcare delivery.  Patient centric healthcare delivery requires coherent strategies, regulatory environment and skills development programs. Technology adoption is important in the context of strengthening impact and scaling access to healthcare, due to the significant shortfall in available medical professionals particularly in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group Countries.

mHealth4Afrika is focused on the co-design and validation of a comprehensive, patient-centric health platform that is adaptable and extensible, modular and multilingual. Designed for use in resource constrained environments around the world, mHealth4Afrika integrates Electronic Health and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) functionality with the use of medical sensors and data visualisation tools at the point of care. It also supports the automatic counting of aggregate program indicator data required by Ministries of Health as well as SMS appointment notifications. Integration has been undertaken with the BLIS Lab system.

mHealth4Afrika has been co-designed and validated in partnership with Ministries of Health, District Health Offices, Clinics Managers and nurses in primary healthcare facilities in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa to inform functionality and usability. We are also working with local university partners to support sustainable local capacity building.

Objectives

The objective of mHealth4Afrika is to strengthen primary healthcare delivery in resource-constrained environments. mHealth4Afrika aims to assist primary healthcare facilities to 

  • Increase quality and impact of care by strengthening the capacity of primary healthcare professionals to capture comprehensive histories as well as current medical conditions. This will support continuity of care between visits and inform diagnosis.
  • Support implementation of sustainable Prevention Strategies by building necessary community trust to increase the frequency of contact with patients
  • Automate and significantly increase the accuracy of aggregate program indicator data. mHealth4Afrika can support strengthening policy formulation and decision making by the Ministry of Health
  • mHealth4Afrika aims to strengthen the current skills of clinic staff by facilitating onsite access to educational materials (important for those who cannot easily access continuous professional medical education). Finally, it aims to support health education sensitization of patients and local communities.

Medical Programs supported

mHealth4Afrika has co-designed medical programs from a cross-border perspective based on analysis of paper-based registries and extensive consultation with clinicians in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa. We have identified additional data sets beyond those supported by paper-based registries that leverage the opportunities offered by an Electronic Medical Record (EMR), including monitoring and follow up for more complicated cases.

While mHealth4Afrika initially focused on maternal and child health, once these programs were successfully implemented and validated, stakeholders strongly encouraged us to extend functionality and programs supports to provide a comprehensive and integrated solution that would facilitate a holistic “cradle to grave” approach to patient care. mHealth4Afrika now incorporates an extensive set of programs and functionality prioritised by participating key stakeholders, including automated counting of program indicators, SMS Appointment Notifications, and lab result integration. This can be extended further.

Current Programs supported include

  • Medical History (Adult, Child, Obstetric History)
  • Maternal Health (Pregnancy Test, Antenatal, Delivery, PostNatal)
  • Family Planning
  • Cervical Cancer Screening
  • Child Under 5 (Growth & Nutrition, Childhood Illnesses, Immunisation, Vitamin A and Deworming)
  • Tuberculosis (IPT, TB Contact Management, Screening, Consultation, Multi Drug Resistant Consultation)
  • ART (Voluntary Screening, ART Consultation)
  • General, Paediatric and Gynae Obstetric Outpatient (or OPD)
  • Diabetes

Based on the next priorities identified, we are currently configuring programs for Malaria and Hypertension.

Health facilities of different sizes may support different programs. Clinic Managers can easily select appropriate programs, set up users and assign program specific access rights based on the responsibilities of individual health staff.