CHW Central

A global resource for and about Community Health Workers

mHealth and Technology

Challenges and prospects for implementation of community health volunteers’ digital health solutions in Kenya: a qualitative study

Low-resource settings experience increased access to health interventions when they are able to adopt digital health technologies.  Pauline Bakibinga and colleagues developed a mobile health app for Kenyan community health volunteers (CHVs) to digitize some of the forms used to collect data for local health facilities. Research evaluating the effectiveness of this program … [Read more...] about Challenges and prospects for implementation of community health volunteers’ digital health solutions in Kenya: a qualitative study

Impact of mobile health-enhanced supportive supervision and supply chain management on appropriate integrated community case management of malaria, diarrhoea, and pneumonia in children 2-59 months: A cluster randomized trial in Eastern Province, Zambia

Poor supply chain management and a lack of supportive supervision represent challenges to successful treatment of childhood illnesses like diarrhoea, malaria, and pneumonia. Godfrey Biemba and his team wanted to know whether a mobile health (mHealth) system could help CHWs monitor medical stock and improve the quality of supervision and mentoring of CHWs. Results indicated that … [Read more...] about Impact of mobile health-enhanced supportive supervision and supply chain management on appropriate integrated community case management of malaria, diarrhoea, and pneumonia in children 2-59 months: A cluster randomized trial in Eastern Province, Zambia

Using mobile phones to improve community health workers performance in low-and-middle-income countries

The authors of this study stress the importance of mHealth to enhance the impact of CHW’ work in LMICs. They emphasize the importance of mobile phones for data collection, provider communication, and monitoring. They also point out that obstacles, such as a lack of mHealth training and internet service, can hinder the effective use and rollout of mhealth solutions and argue for … [Read more...] about Using mobile phones to improve community health workers performance in low-and-middle-income countries

Design and implementation of a mobile health electronic data capture platform that functions in fully-disconnected settings: a pilot study in rural Liberia

Mobile data collection in rural Liberia is limited by a lack of cellular connection. In this study CHWs and supervisors implemented an application allowing for offline data collection using Bluetooth services. Results demonstrated that the functioning of the application is worthwhile, with the program still operating 4 years after its introduction. … [Read more...] about Design and implementation of a mobile health electronic data capture platform that functions in fully-disconnected settings: a pilot study in rural Liberia

Using mHealth to improve health care delivery in India: A qualitative examination of the perspectives of community health workers and beneficiaries

Common Application Software (CAS) is a new mHealth intervention aimed at addressing time efficiency and quality of healthcare by CHWs. The objective of this study was to collect data on CHWs’ perspectives on CAS, changes in CHW-beneficiary interactions after CAS implementation, and challenges CHWs faced as a result of CAS. Although the beneficiaries' views were mixed, the CHWs … [Read more...] about Using mHealth to improve health care delivery in India: A qualitative examination of the perspectives of community health workers and beneficiaries