Q2 2022 Report
introduction
Speed, Quality and Scale
In Q2, Medic’s global team redoubled our commitment to speed, quality, and scale – ensuring that the tools we create alongside our community work as designed in the field, streamline the experience for health workers, and are prepared to support scale in increasingly complex community health systems.
We’re proud to have launched CHT v3.15, which enables faster app loading times and the ability to add users in bulk (a much celebrated enhancement by our community!). We also made critical progress on the highly-anticipated CHT 4.0, coming soon! We continued our work alongside Ministries of Health, leveraging a consortia approach to successfully expand into two new districts in Uganda. We also launched a five-year research study which aims to address critical gaps in neonatal health in Kenya.
With you, our community of Medic champions, we’re thrilled to celebrate these achievements, share a behind the scenes look at our team with a new Q&A series, and highlight three newly published articles and studies. Please also join us in welcoming Mr. Robert Mutai as Medic’s Chief Program Officer!
our impact
In Q2, the CHT supported 5.5 million caring activities and more than 37,000 Community Health Workers (CHWs).
Medic and our partners supported a total of 5.5 million caring activities in Q2 2022, bringing the total number of caring activities since monitoring began in 2014 to 81.1M
37,279
Total CHT users
16
Countries with active CHT implementations
81.1M
All-time caring activities supported
5.5M
Caring activities this quarter
In Q2, health workers registered 63,053 households, 70,034 pregnancies, and maintained critical speed of care, including 97% of PNC visits on-time and 81.9% of under-five child assessments within 72 hours.
70,034
Pregnancies registered
92.8
% of deliveries in a facility
907,237
Under-5 assessments
81.9
% of under-5 assessments conducted within 72 hours
product highlights
Adding users in bulk, CHT version 3.15 delivers for scale
As technical stewards of the CHT, Medic is committed to ensuring the architecture and features of the platform advance with – and in support of – the needs of CHT Technical and Implementation Partners. In Q2, Medic released version 3.15 of the CHT Core Framework, bringing faster app loading times, new functionality to add health workers in bulk, and 20 improvements and bug fixes. Version 3.15 paves the way for the launch of 4.0 – a game-changer with incredible scalability features.
FASTER APP LOADING TIMES
The CHT webapp has much improved offline-first capabilities, which means the app starts just as quickly whether users have high-speed internet, low connectivity, or no connectivity at all. With this update, it now takes just 1 second to startup an app, no matter where you are.
ADDING USERS IN BULK
Prior to version 3.15, user accounts were created one at a time, causing significant bottlenecks as new cohorts of users were trained and onboarded.. With the new bulk user API, partners can now create hundreds of health worker accounts simultaneously. This has paved the way for a CHT 3.16 feature which allows for bulk user creation directly in the Admin UI. Kwaheri (goodbye) to the old ways, hujambo (hello) to innovation!
User experience at the center of everything we do
Our work is fundamentally grounded in the principles of Human Centered Design and Medic’s enduring commitment to our values of humanity and solidarity. We believe that to design solutions for complex use cases and health systems, we must center the needs and voices of health workers at every stage of the process as we design systems, workflows, and apps to deliver digitally supported care in communities.
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
Stewarding the Expanding CHT Community
As of June 2022, we have successfully onboarded 3 new Technical Partners in 2022 – Guild Digital, I-TECH, and SunyaEk. Guild Digital have since successfully deployed the CHT in Uganda, while SunyaEk continue to support the Ministry of Health in Nepal. I-TECH and I-TECH DIGI have with Medic’s support successfully recruited dedicated CHT developers to support their deployments and explore opportunities in the Caribbean.
We continue to support and accompany 8 Technical Partners and many more community members including, Beehyv, D-tree International, Living Goods, ICM Philippines, JKUAT’s Digital Health Applied Research Centre, Palladium, Toto Health, and VisorTech.
program updates
Uganda Intelligent Community Health Systems (iCoHS)
In Q1, we reported on the use of digital technologies by MoH in Uganda to address community health bottlenecks. Medic, DataKind, BRAC, and Living Goods make up the Intelligent Community Health Systems (iCoHS) consortium in Uganda, which is led by UNICEF and financially supported by The Rockefeller Foundation are working together to support ongoing growth in the country.
Through this collaborative working group, we have achieved full sub-county coverage by supporting all VHTs in Lamwo and Ntungamo districts and in Kitwe, Itojo, Bwongyera and Rugarama sub-counties.
In Q2, we had a successful deployment training, where 498 Village Health Teams (VHTs) – 199 in Lamwo and 299 in Ntungamo – were trained and have since gone live. The training was led by the districts, supported by iCoHS partners and was supervised by MoH in Uganda.
During the training, we gathered feedback that will be useful in learning how the app feedback is affected by the district’s programmatic challenges and vice versa.
research initiatives
Community-based digital communication to support neonatal health (CHV-NEO)
In collaboration with the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), and University of Washington’s Global WACh, Medic has launched CHV NEO, a five-year research study in Kenya exploring direct-to-client community-based digital communication to support neonatal health. The CHV-NEO study has potential to address a critical gap in efforts to improve neonatal health in resource-limited settings.
The study adapts the CHT-based Mobile WACh mHealth platform that allows for both automated sending of tailored health-related SMS messages and direct to client SMS interaction. CHV-NEO will develop an interactive SMS text messaging intervention that remotely connects pregnant women and new mothers with CHVs in order to support early neonatal care, identification of serious illness, and care seeking. The study will also and evaluate the intervention’s effect on clinical outcomes (neonatal mortality, facility visits, and essential newborn care), service outcomes through a CHV and supervisor workflow, and implementation outcomes such as acceptability, uptake and fidelity of implementation when implemented as part of routine CHV workflow and layered on to the Electronic Community Health Information System (eCHIS) in Western Kenya.
We are currently undertaking user-centered design research with end users in Siaya and Kisumu counties to inform design of the CHV-NEO direct-to-client intervention. Completion of this study will generate a ready-to-scale intervention and rigorous data on both its effectiveness and the enablers of its successful implementation of conducting home visits to pregnant and postpartum women to promote neonatal and maternal health.
Please visit the CHV-NEO project website for additional information.
Hot off the press – new publications from Medic teammates
“The COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for landmark improvements in the ability of health care systems to reach and serve everyone—even in difficult circumstances. CHWs have long played a critical role in preventing, detecting, and responding to pandemics across the globe.”
In this publication titled Community Health Workers in Pandemics: Evidence and Investment Implications read on to understand how we can better improve and institutionalize services that will provide CHW stability and enable them to flourish.
With joint efforts from the Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC), we launched Continuity of community-based healthcare provision during COVID-19: a multicountry interrupted time series analysis. CHWs across all sites were supported in line with the WHO Guideline and received COVID-19 adapted protocols, training and personal protective equipment within 45 days after the first case in each country. |
In collaboration with ITECH/ University of Washington we published Transitioning a digital health innovation from research to routine practice: Two-way texting for male circumcision follow-up in Zimbabwe.
This study highlights findings from the 10 month scale-up period maintaining the benefits shown in an initial RCT pilot, this study demonstrated that routine 2wT was safe and provided clear efficiency advantages over in-person follow-up and reduced unnecessary patient-provider in-person interactions for COVID-19 infection prevention.
To showcase the unique strengths of our greatest asset – our people – we are launching a Q&A series to share more about Medic’s roles, culture, mission and values. We sat down with Medic Finance Officers, Charles Macharia and Ian Njihia Kamau, both integral members of the Internal Operations team.
Find out more about them here.
INTERNAL NEWS
Welcoming Robert Mutai, Chief Program Officer
We are proud to have welcomed Robert Mutai as Chief Program Officer, the newest member of our growing global team. Robert is a Nairobi-based technology leader with over 20 years experience in the ICT industry and a strong advocate for societal transformation through technology. He brings to Medic his record of success in policy development, delivery of key transformational programs, service designs, strong tech financial and investment planning/analysis, and proven process governance & partner management experience.
NEW TEAM MEMBERS
Prawjol Shrestha App Developer
Wendy Achieng Communications Manager
Jectone Oyugi Senior People Ops Generalist
Niraj Sitaula Developer Advocate