Design and Develop an innovative mHealth alert system for use by the community healthcare workers implementing the Uganda national child survival strategy

Abstract

The country has a maternal mortality rate of 336 and an infant mortality rate of 43 which remains high compared to the global rates (Babughirana et al., 2020). The study aimed to design and develop an mHealth system that could be used by the community healthcare workers implementing the Uganda national child survival strategy. The researcher organized virtual focus group discussions with community healthcare workers from Kyenjojo district and key informant interviews with the district health management team to obtain ideas on the design of the prototype mHealth application for the community healthcare workers involved in the child survival activities. The key findings from the study indicated lack of understanding of the child survival services, low morale and motivation among the village health teams coupled with minimal supervision by the district health management team. The design thinking process model was used to guide the design and development process of the prototype. The Usercentered process and agile methodology were utilized to integrate users in the design and development of the prototype. The modeling of the functional features of the prototype was done using the Microsoft Visio tool and the development of the prototype was done CommcareHq form builder. A virtual group discussion was organized with the participants and the prototype was tested on an android mobile phone. The child survival strategy utilizes a set of community and population-focused intervention approach at the household level to provide messaging and counseling to the vulnerable household members. The participants highlighted that the mHealth prototype should: identify and enroll the vulnerable household members, diagnose danger signs, provide social behavior change messages for the mother and guardians of children below five years of age. The participants also highlighted that for the prototype to align with their workflow, the development process would digitize the HMIS (Health Management Information System) forms used by the community healthcare workers. In the study cohort, there were minimal challenges identified with the use of the mHealth application prototype. Digitizing the current paper forms resulted in some questions being omitted which disrupted the routine that they were used to. This was crucial as it aligned the workflow process and reduced the workload