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
mHealth and Technology
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
The state of community health information systems in West and Central Africa
The use of stand-alone community-based reporting systems in developing countries provide insufficient information to key stakeholders and policy makers the information they require. there is a need for community-based reporting systems that feed information directly into centralized, government owned information systems. This article presents the results from a one-week … [Read more...] about The state of community health information systems in West and Central Africa