Community Health Workers Mobile Application For Household Registration; Danger Signs Identification And Referral

Abstract

Access to health care in low resource settings like slums is usually a major challenge and this is due to a variety of reasons ranging from poverty, illiteracy and distance to providers of health care. However, with healthcare providers at the community level known as Community Health Workers (CHWs) this challenge is alleviated. CHWs are meant to address shortage of health workers coming in to give health services to communities they come from an approach that has been in existence for a many years. In many communities of Kenya and around the globe, Community Health Workers are continuously collecting household and individual level data, which is rarely being used to make timely informed decisions. Data collected from households has no linkage with data captured at the health facility. The main objective of the study was to develop a CHW mobile application that helps in capturing information and promptly using it, in making correct and timely decisions for cases in the community. To be able to develop the CHW Mobile application, requirements were collected through talking to different stakeholders who work closely with community health workers. They included sub county focal persons for Baba Dogo and Isiolo sub-counties, Community Health Workers, Research Officers from APHRC as well as Software developers. These requirements were also supplemented by looking at different literature which expound on the work done by Community Health Workers. This was done to help understand how CHWs work and the tools they use for their daily operations. Through agile Software methodology that allows development of medium size software applications, the CHW Mobile application was developed. It was an iterative process where the most important aspects of the application were prioritized and developed. Others were also integrated tested and adopted thereafter. The objectives set out at the beginning of this undertaking were achieved through; looking at literature and talking to different stakeholders that help community health workers in their work. The main objective of the study was achieved by developing the CHW Mobile application and linking it to a web application for uploading and downloading of data as well as for data visualization.