16 December 2016
Based on the baseline study and needs assessment undertaken in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa during November and December 2015, the specification for the mHealth4Afrika alpha prototype was prepared based on input from target end-user communities (healthcare/clinical staff working in urban, rural and deep rural clinics) and analysis of the standard paper-based registeries.
The alpha prototype was validated by IIMC (mHealth4Afrika Coordinator), University of Gondar (Ethiopia), Chancellor College, University of Malawi (Malawi), @iLabAfrica, University of Strathmore (Kenya) and Nelson Mandela University (South Africa) with 49 healthcare workers across 14 intervention clinics in Northern Gondor (Amhara Region, Ethiopia), Zomba and Machinga Districts (Southern Malawi), Bungoma County (Western Kenya) and Eastern Cape (South Africa) between 22 November and 09 December 2016. Initial sensitation using sensors was also undertaken using an oximeter.
This initial validation phase was very informative in the context of gathering initial feedback as part of the co-design process to create user interfaces to facilitate (a) registering new healthcare facilities (b) registering staff in a healthcare facility, (c) registering new clients in a healthcare facility and (c) gathering data from clients at a healthcare facility. It also gathered critical insight into potential usability issues from a user interface, workflow, functionality and data collection perspective which will inform preparing the updated user requirements and user interface workflow, functionality and data collection specification to be included in the mHealth4Afrika beta system.