momconnect the ndoh initiative - unicef · •to use mobile tools to register pregnancies in sa...

MomConnect project

Dr Yogan Pillay

25/11/2015

MomConnect the NDOH initiative

ECD KNOWLEDGE BUILDING SEMINAR

ECD Knowledge Building Seminar 25 -26 November 2015 (© Author(s) of this presentation)

MomConnect is an initiative led by the South African National Department of Health that is part of the nation’s overall effort to reduce maternal and child mortality, improve the health of mothers and children, and achieve targets 4 and 5 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is designed :

• To use mobile tools to register pregnancies in SA • Once registered, to send to each mother stage-based

SMSs to support her and her baby. • To receive feedback via help desk• To provide support to Nurses

•This is a free service for the mother.

What is MomConnect?


Strengthening the Health System

The MomConnect project also contains components which will strengthen the health system, namely:-

1) A free frequently asked questions and text based service to allow registered women to get information when they need it.

2) A service rating system to allow pregnant women to rate their experience of visiting the antenatal clinic.

3) A compliments and complaints system which will feed useful information to provinces and districts.


Overview of achievements of MomConnect in first 15 months (October 2015)

Categories Number

Total self-subscription 173 196

Total subscription by CHWs 18 610

Total Registration 481 620

Facilities with at least 1 registration 3 847

Total of unique cell numbers 622 278


Number of Registrations Per Province. August 2014 to October 2015

Provinces Number of Registrations Percentage achieved against target

Free State 21 745 64,3

Gauteng 110 889 66,1

KZN 104 206 68,3

Limpopo 66 515 77,4

Mpumalanga 56 403 98,6

Northern Cape 7 084 44,8

North West 41 091 87

Eastern Cape 39 529 45,7

Western Cape 26 365 41,2

Not possible to allocate to Province 7 630

Grand Total 481 620 67,0

Note: the targets are 60% of previous financial year first antenatal visits.


Number of people trained and percentage of facilities covered with trained. October 2015

Provinces Total of staff trained % of facilities with staff trained

Free State 1475 99

Gauteng 4089 98

KZN 8824 100

Limpopo 2267 99

Mpumalanga 3348 99

Northern Cape 1007 94

North West 6978 78

Eastern Cape 3581 98

Western Cape 3318 74

Grand Total 34887 95


Number of Compliments September 2014 to October 2015

Number Percentage

Service Delivery 487 84,1

HR related 71 12,3

Others 21 3,6

Total 579 100


Number of Compiments September 2014 to October 2015

Number Percentage

Project related 2536 74,9

HR related 211 6,2

Services related 639 18,9

Total 3386 100


Messaging Services

• Once the pregnant woman is registered, she gets regular messages appropriate to the stage of her pregnancy and/or the age of her baby.

• These messages are in the form of reminders of what to do or useful and interesting information which will help her to take better care of herself and her baby.


Maternal Messages examples

TOPIC MESSAGE

ANC and accessing care in labour

Your clinic visits may take all day. You can get a letter from theclinic for your work (It doesn't have to say that you are pregnant)Ask at the clinic where you need to go for the birth. You need to know in advance so you don’t go to the wrong place in an emergencyPlan ahead to make sure you can get help. Make sure you have airtime, write down the ambulance number or arrange with someone to transport you

Diet and Nutrition

Healthy diet is important for you and baby. Try to eat beans, dark green leafy veg or red meat every day. Take the iron tablets from the clinic!


Other components of MomConnect

• The service is voluntary and no-one is forced to register

• There is an opt out function and women can stop messaging at any time.

• There also is system that allows the pregnant woman to rate the services received, complain and compliment.

• There is also an help desk that looks at around of 1000 questions per day


Telephonic Survey with Mothers•The survey took place in July 2015•9675 SMSs sent, only 1999 responded (21,6%)

Over 98% (1962) of these users felt that MomConnect messages had helped them

Over 80% (1611) had shared the messages with friends or their partners

Over 80% (1606) reported that the messages helped them to remember their clinic visits

Over 75% (1531) of users reported that the messages had helped them feel more prepared for childbirth and delivery.

Over 70% (1414) actually wanted more messages than the 100 plus messages they already receive during their pregnancy and the first year of the child's life.


Constraints

• Despite rolling out to almost all the facilities in the country, the enrolment of pregnant women on the system is not as high as we expected.

• Despite having trained around 35000 health professionals some staff have said that they were not trained. This may be due to high rotation of staff.

• The cell phone network coverage, although very good in the country, is still a problem that some nurses complained is affecting the registration process.

• The high costs with of SMS & USSD is being looked investigated to see how can be reduced.


The next phase of MomConnect

• Extend the messages to other groups. Eg: partners, children under 5

• Move the system to data– Integrate with current PHC information systems

– Implement a mobisite and integrate with this (web page)

– Use smart phones to register; replace SMSs with data messages

• Upgrade the help desk

• Increase the registration points involving the private sector

• Linking to youth mobisite called “B-Wise” to ensure consistency of information

• Extend the messages to HIV positive women and try to identify high risk pregnancies; link these to the help desk


Challenges

• Financial sustainability

• Integration with other applications already running in the Department

• Use of data

• Piggy-backing other services

• Private sector


Thank you


momconnect the ndoh initiative - unicef · •to use mobile tools to register pregnancies in sa...

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