08 December 2017
The first iteration of the mHealth4Afrika beta application was validated with health facilities in Bugoma County, Western Kenya during December 2017.
In Kenya the functional administration of public health facilities has been devolved to the county level. Bungoma County is in Western Kenya bordering with Uganda. It has a total area of c. 2,207 km2 and an estimated population of c. 1.361 million (c.3.1% population of Kenya). The intervention health clinics are within a radius of 20 - 30kms from the county hospital in Bungoma Town.
The Ministry of Health, Bungoma County selected the following health facilities to participate in this validation phase: Webuye Health centre (semi-urban), Kimaeti Health Centre (deep rural) and Nalondo Health Centre (deep rural). An evaluation was also undertaken with an official in Ministry of Health Webuye East Sub County.
A briefing meeting was held with Dr Sylvester Mutoro, County Director of Health, Bungoma County on 04 December 2017. This facilitated an update to be provided on mHealth4Afrika objectives and achievements to date in the other beneficiary countries. The beta evaluation commenced later in Kenya due to distruption following the presidential elections and the extended nature of the nurses strike.
An official from the Ministry of Health Webuye East Sub County evaluated the first iteration of the beta platform providing constructive positive feedback. He recommended that over time the number of health facilities using mHealth4Afrika should be extended as he considered the platform would assist in the health centres in monitoring the holistic well being of patients. He also validated the initial Child Under 5 program and proposed prioritisation for adding additional complementary programs.
The feedback provided by nurses and clinical officers in charge in the health centres was very postive. They validated the data sets and workflow for medical history, obstetric history, maternal healthcare (antenatal care stages and delivery) and initial data sets and stages proposed by the Child Under 5 program. They also validated usability issues from a user interface, workflow, functionality and data collection perspective. Healthcare workers were observed interacting with different functional areas of the mHealth4Afrika beta prototype and were given minimal guidance in using the platform. As they completed using each functional area, they were requested to provide detailed feedback on each aspect of the user interface, functionality and workflow. Each validation session lasted a minimum of two to three hours.
The nurses liked the systematic approach to the presentation of stages within programs and noted that this would support clinicans to go through a check list. The healthcare professionals went through the system functionality, setting up a new patient, adding data for ANC stages and reviewing reports. They appreciated the data visualisation of vital signs across ANC visit. They felt that the appointment functionality would be very beneficial. They also provided feedback on the initial data points and stages for the Child Under 5 program.
The feedback received during the evaluation in the four beneficiary countries during November and December fed into the updated specifications for future iterations of the beta platform.