CommCare ASHA India Health Acton Trust (IHAT) in partnership with Dimagi and Save the Children

1. CommCare ASHAIndia Health Acton Trust (IHAT) in partnership with Dimagi and Save the Children e-Health

2. PROJECT DESCRIPTION • The CommCare mobile application in Kishangarh, Rajasthan has been developed in collaboration with Save the Children and India Health Action Trust (IHAT). • The project aims to reduce maternal and neonatal mortalities in Rajasthan through effective counseling and increasing awareness about pregnancy and neonatal danger signs, nutrition, iron supplementation, emergency preparedness, encouraging choice of delivering at institutions and de-constructing myths surrounding pregnancy and newborn care practices. • The application was deployed with 10 ASHAs in May ’11. Scaled the use of the application to 70 ASHAs in Jan ’12. • The CommCare application in Kishangarh contains two modules, one for monitoring the health of pregnant women and the other to monitor the health of children aged 0-2 years. • Features of the mobile application include a case list of mothers and newborns, registration forms, checklists for pregnant women, immunizations checklist for newborns, forms with multimedia-supported counselling messages.

3. UNIQUENESS AND IMPACT • Case Management: The CommCare application helps ASHAs track multiple mother-child cases over time and promotes timely visits. • Well-structured checklists in the CommCare application have improved ASHAs’ knowledge and skill levels. • Multimedia-supported messages: Audio recorded in the Marwari dialect of Rajasthan and clearly-designed images improve an ASHA’s engagement with her beneficiary, serve as an effective counselling tool and attract the attention of key decision-makers such as the mother-in-law. • In our user feedback we found that CommCare builds credibility of the ASHA. • Use of local language in audio has made the application more user-friendly. • Application use in zero network connectivity: An ASHA can use the mobile application in the absence of network connectivity. • Monitoring and evaluation: Real time information can be accessed by the supervisors. Monitoring reports on the server help track worker performance. Data helps supervisors support ANMs at monthly Primary Health Center meetings to provide feedback about ASHA performance. • Preliminary evidence shows that good monitoring processes are positively correlated with better performance by ASHAs.

4. ROADMAP • In Rajasthan, IHAT shared the concept with the health department at the district level,they were very positive to continue with it. • IHAT now has organizational capacity to continue implementation of the mobile health project in Kishangarh and scale in neighbouring areas with some initial training and support from Dimagi. • IHAT with Dimagi has developed a similar application for its PPTCT project in two new districts; being used by the 28 Field Level Functionaries. • Further, we are interested in building the capacity of other NGOs operating in the region to implement mobile health interventions of their own. • The CommCare application in Kishangarh can be supplemented with referral SMS messages that would inform health authorities and ANMs of pregnant mother identified with any danger signs.

5. THANK YOU Priyamvada Singh, Ph.D INDIA HEALTH ACTION TRUST-IHAT