mHealth in Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Programs around the World

2019 ◽  
pp. 55-63
Author(s):  
Briana Britton ◽  
Laura Pugliese ◽  
Stan Kachnowski
Keyword(s):  
Health Education ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Maternal And Child Health ◽  
Quality Of Healthcare ◽  
Biometric Data ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Access And Quality ◽  
Child Health Programs ◽  
And Child Health

The incorporation of mobile devices into the delivery of healthcare, known as mHealth, is changing the way care is delivered in the 21st century. The impact of mHealth is particularly salient in low and middle income countries (LMICs), where mHealth poses the opportunity to increase access and quality of healthcare in systems where supportive infrastructure is otherwise lacking. This approach is well-suited to target issues of maternal and child health, permitting an increase in health education, communication, monitoring, and care to what are often vulnerable and hard-to-access populations. Employing mHealth tactics that target such populations can improve the overall access and quality of maternal and child health in the developing world - a priority for the United Nations as reflected in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While the field of mHealth is new and still developing, many programs and thought-leaders have already successfully applied mHealth strategies in interventions to improve maternal and child health through health education, preventive care, emergency response, biometric data collection, and training healthcare workers.

mHealth in Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Programs around the World

2015 ◽  
pp. 818-824
Author(s):  
Briana Britton ◽  
Laura Pugliese ◽  
Stan Kachnowski
Keyword(s):  
Health Education ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Maternal And Child Health ◽  
Quality Of Healthcare ◽  
Biometric Data ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Access And Quality ◽  
Child Health Programs ◽  
And Child Health

The incorporation of mobile devices into the delivery of healthcare, known as mHealth, is changing the way care is delivered in the 21st century. The impact of mHealth is particularly salient in low and middle income countries (LMICs), where mHealth poses the opportunity to increase access and quality of healthcare in systems where supportive infrastructure is otherwise lacking. This approach is well-suited to target issues of maternal and child health, permitting an increase in health education, communication, monitoring, and care to what are often vulnerable and hard-to-access populations. Employing mHealth tactics that target such populations can improve the overall access and quality of maternal and child health in the developing world - a priority for the United Nations as reflected in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While the field of mHealth is new and still developing, many programs and thought-leaders have already successfully applied mHealth strategies in interventions to improve maternal and child health through health education, preventive care, emergency response, biometric data collection, and training healthcare workers.

scholarly journals Standardized Functions for Smartphone Applications: Examples from Maternal and Child Health

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus ◽  
Mark Tomlinson ◽  
Dallas Swendeman ◽  
Adabel Lee ◽  
Erynne Jones
Keyword(s):  
Child Health ◽  
Maternal And Child Health ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Health Providers ◽  
Cultural Adaptations ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
And Child Health

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unlikely to be met in most low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Smartphones and smartphone proxy systems using simpler phones, equipped with the capabilities to identify location/time and link to the web, are increasingly available and likely to provide an excellent platform to support healthcare self-management, delivery, quality, and supervision. Smart phones allow information to be delivered by voice, texts, pictures, and videos as well as be triggered by location and date. Prompts and reminders, as well as real-time monitoring, can improve quality of health care. We propose a three-tier model for designing platforms for both professional and paraprofessional health providers and families: (1) foundational functions (informing, training, monitoring, shaping, supporting, and linking to care); (2) content-specific targets (e.g., for MDG; developmentally related tasks); (3) local cultural adaptations (e.g., language). We utilize the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) MDG in order to demonstrate how the existing literature can be organized and leveraged on open-source platforms and provide examples using our own experience in Africa over the last 8 years.

Clients’ Satisfaction with Quality of Service Delivery at a Government Hospital in Ghana

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 210-254
Author(s):  
Perez Quartey ◽  
Emmanuel Ntekuni
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Service ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Maternal And Child Health ◽  
Quality Of Healthcare ◽  
Government Hospital ◽  
X Ray ◽  
And Child Health ◽  
Nose And Throat

Client satisfaction with health service delivery has been frequently used as an indirect measure of quality of service. Many healthcare delivery stakeholders and policy makers such as governments, health managers and clients alike are now attaching importance to healthcare quality. The main objective of the study was to examine the clients’ satisfaction with quality of healthcare at Atebubu Government Hospital. The mixed-method cross-sectional (both quantitative and qualitative) approach was adopted for the study. A structured questionnaire on five thematic areas (Infrastructure, Timeliness, Cost, Staff competence, Staff commitment and attitude) was used to interview exiting clients from the 7 units (Records, Consultancy, Pharmacy, Maternal and Child Health, X-ray, Laboratory and Ear, Nose and Throat). The study included a total of 1,470 clients. The overall mean perception level of the quality of service delivery and level of satisfaction were 69.8% and 70.8% respectively. The detailed breakdown of the responses showed that the mean scores for the Records (82.3%), Consultation (90.3%), X-ray (60.2%), Maternal and Child Health (80.1%), Ear, Nose and Throat (86.2%) were all satisfactory. However, the scores for the laboratory (48.3%) and pharmacy (48.1%) were both unsatisfactory mainly due to long waiting time and cost of accessing services. Clients’ satisfaction with quality of healthcare services at the Records, Consultancy, Maternal and Child Health, X-ray and the Ear, Nose and Throat departments were good. However, there was poor satisfaction with quality of services at the Laboratory and Pharmacy departments, with the main reasons for the dissatisfaction hinging on timeliness and cost.

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