Authors: Amref Health Africa
Project
The Health Enablement & Learning Platform (HELP) is a pilot project which harnesses Amref Health Africa’s understanding of African communities and their health needs, instantaneously delivering relevant health information to the mobile phones of community health workers (CHWs) in a cost-effective manner. A multidisciplinary partnership between Accenture, the Accenture Foundations, Vodafone Group, Safaricom, M-PESA Foundation, and Mezzanine recognizes that merging mobile technology with health training systems offers opportunities for increased reach and scale, providing an effective channel for personalized, flexible learning for CHWs and widespread improvement in the provision of healthcare throughout Kenya and beyond.
Need
African countries are facing a severe shortage of human resources for health. There are not enough health care workers in any cadre to provide adequate health care delivery and support to a population that so decisively needs it.
CHWs play a critical role as frontline health workers, but are severely undertrained and ill-equipped. This limits their ability to deliver health services effectively. For example, in Kenya, CHWs are often community volunteers who receive about half of the required nine days of pre-service training deemed necessary by the Government as a bare minimum. Additionally, CHWs may only receive one day of refresher training every few years.
Significant attrition rates of up to 70% due to inadequate incentives and motivation results in lost community health knowledge. The negative impact of insufficient pre- and in-service training for CHWs is clear – community health in Africa is suffering, with Africa carrying a significant disproportion of the world’s overall health burden.
Intended Impact/Results
Amref Health Africa and partners aim to drive impact in a range of areas critical to improving community health in Africa with the HELP program:
1. Core and critical skills development and continuous learning for thousands of CHWs
2. Improved motivation and retention of CHWs due to better supervision and the knowhow to perform their jobs
3. Career advancement and employment opportunities for CHWs
4. Enhanced, more efficient, and cost-effective health worker up-skilling
5. Improved community health workforce management and intelligence for ministries of health
Link: Using Mobile Phones to Train Healthworkers
Resource Topic: CHW Role, Leadership, mHealth and Technology
Resource Type: Evaluation
Year: 2015
Region: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
Country: Kenya
Publisher May Restrict Access: No