Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTeCH) from Ghana has been nominated by an international jury of ICT experts to enter the next round of the 2013 World Summit Award (WSA) in e-Health & Environment.
MoTeCH, which is being implemented together with the Grameen Foundation, makes it possible for women with limited or no literacy skills to get professional and accurate information in their local language, giving a clearer understanding on the dos and don’ts in pregnancy and childbirth.
The women also receive reminders on clinical appointments, due dates and other related services such as required medication and immunisation with simultaneous alerts sent by their midwives through a basic $40 mobile phone.
The World Summit Award (WSA) is the global follow-up initiative of the United Nations World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) organised by the International Center for New Media (ICNM), Salzburg, Austria.
Ms Mabel Segbafah, MoTeCH Liaison Officer, Ghana Health Service, said MoTeCH addressed the vital health information gap that existed in many communities in districts with low achievements in terms of health outcomes, helping young women and couples to debunk misconceptions and myths about conception, pregnancy and childbirth and nurturing of the newborn.
It was piloted in the Kassena-Nankana West District in the Upper East Region and currently being replicated in Awutu Senya and Gomoa West, both in the Central Region, Dangme East in the Greater Accra Region and South Tongu in the Volta Region.
MoTeCH, she said, was integrated into maternal health services at the antenatal clinic and it augments maternal health services by addressing the four delays that cause many women to miss the opportunity in receiving timely lifesaving care.
In addition, MoTeCH’s Mobile Midwife application delivers gestation-specific messages that teach women and their family members to recognise the signs of life-threatening complications during pregnancy to help take the decision to seek care, as well as the appropriate steps to reduce the time they take in seeking care.
“MoTeCH links individual clients to the health system, through their community midwife, who is then able to follow up and deliver services even to their doorstep,” she further said.
For midwives and the health service delivery system, the nurse application enables rapid response and effective care, especially to defaulters in the community.
There are also messages on food choices, diet adequacy and exercise and preparations towards childbirth.
More important, MoTeCH messages are not restricted to women but are also sent to their partners, because many men would not usually accompany their partners to the antenatal care clinic.
According to Ms Sagbafah, given the overwhelming positive feedback from women and their partners in the communities where MoTeCH had been piloted, the GHS intends to roll out MoTeCH to the whole of Ashanti Region and then throughout the country.
A statement from WSA said MoTeCH would compete against almost 500 outstanding e-Content products and applications from 168 countries. The 40 world's best e-Content applications will be selected to be presented before an international audience in Co-lombo/Sri Lanka on October 23 to select eight overall winners.
No other system so far links individual clients to the health system, the statement said, adding that MoTeCH has shown that this is possible and can achieve positive results.
It noted that winning the WSA would provide the needed publicity and boost the morale of GHS and its implementing partner, Grameen Foundation, to widely promote MoTeCH’s unique value within Ghana and indeed everywhere in the world.
By Rosemary Ardayfio/Daily Graphic/Ghana
