Supporting health workers and building partnerships to respond to COVID-19
Medic Mobile is a mission-oriented nonprofit building free and open-source software that helps health workers deliver equitable care. We serve as the technical steward of the Community Health Toolkit (CHT), a collection of open-source technologies, open-access resources, and a community of practice for precision global health. Medic Mobile is an official partner of Digital Square and CHT is an approved Digital Square global good. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Medic Mobile has been focused on supporting global preparedness and response efforts in solidarity with the partners, health workers, and communities that we serve.
Over the last six months, our team has built a series of CHT-powered tools to respond and mitigate the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic, as well as supporting new and existing partners to embed these tools into their systems to prevent the spread of disease, protect the most vulnerable, and provide care for those impacted by COVID-19.
In this update, we share exciting initiatives in Kenya and a new, promising collaboration with Dimagi on the digital tools that will continue to support frontline health workers as we shift from COVID-19 response to recovery and sustainability.
Deploying COVID-19 apps with CHT partners in Kenya
In Q1 2020, Medic Mobile and Palladium partnered with the Ministry of Health (MoH) Kenya, mHealth Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), and Clinton Health Access (CHAI) to rapidly design and build a national COVID-19 tracking system for surveillance, reporting, investigation and COVID-19 case-reporting in Kenya.
In the COVID-19 tracking system, an offline-first CHT app integrates with KenyaEMR –– the OpenMRS-based medical record system for Kenya, and collectively enables disease surveillance teams to conduct case registration, contact listing, tracing, investigations, laboratory orders, and data exchange. Developed using human-centered design principles to meet the evolving needs of the partners and communities, the system has been deployed in 28 counties to over 1,200 users, with plans for a national scale-up led by the MoH.
CHVs participate in Event-Based Surveillance (EBS) training in Siaya County, Kenya.
Also in Kenya, under the leadership of MoH, CDC USA, and KEMRI, we rapidly adapted mDharura, an existing Community Event-based Surveillance (C-EBS) system powered by the CHT. The system supports reporting, verification, and escalation of potential COVID-19 cases for rapid response and data-driven decision-making.
With mDharura, CHWs use SMS to rapidly report suspect cases or health threats such as COVID-19 cases to their supervisors for verification. Supervisors and Sub-County Health Management Teams (SCHMT) use the CHT app on Android devices to verify and investigate the reported cases and provide appropriate care. county and national response teams use powerful data visualizations for data-driven decision-making and response. C-EBS has been deployed to 6,169 users in Siaya, Nakuru, and Marsabit counties.
Harnessing the power of collaboration in the response to COVID-19.
In light of this unprecedented moment in global health, Medic Mobile and Dimagi joined forces to ensure frontline health programs have access to a suite of powerful, open-source digital tools for COVID-19 containment, mitigation, and recovery efforts. Dimagi and Medic Mobile are developers of the two most widely used open-source software platforms for digitally supported community health in low-resource settings. Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, our collaboration offers coordination and consistency across the various efforts to equip Frontline Health Workers (FLWs) with mobile apps.
The components of this joint work include a shared framework for COVID-19 response applications for frontline workers, as well as a comprehensive collection of open-source COVID-19 FLW apps on our open-source platforms – the CHT and Dimagi’s CommCare – for a range of response activities, including surveillance, contact tracing, community-based monitoring, facility readiness tracking, supply chain management, and lab test management. Our collaborative work will enable enhanced data use and analytics for COVID-19 to support FLWs, including CHWs.
This landmark collaboration is acutely time-sensitive and grounded in addressing the immediate needs emerging from the pandemic, but we also share the belief that strengthening health systems long-term is of equal importance to human health and wellbeing. We are collectively committed to equipping FLWs, including CHWs, with new digital tools that can bolster a data-driven response to COVID-19 and routine primary care in LMICs.
As this commitment is systems-spanning and future-focused, we're excited to carry this collaborative spirit forward in a new Digital Square-supported initiative in which we will work alongside Dimagi, Ona, the Community Health Impact Coalition, and other partners to address interoperability issues for Community Health Information Systems (CHIS) – stay tuned!
New momentum and renewed commitments in Q3 and beyond
In spite of the surprises and hardships the global health community has had to deal with in 2020, we’re seeing encouraging progress in Kenya and many of the other countries where Medic Mobile supports partners and health workers. Health systems are prioritizing communities, people are caring for one another, and human-centered technology is supporting equitable, accessible care for all.
In Q3 and beyond, our team will continue to focus on accompanying our Ministry of Health partners, supporting evolving digital health systems, building the CHT’s community of technical partners, and advancing research and development activities for precision global health.
To learn more about our work with partners in Kenya, our partnership with Dimagi, and the growing CHT community, check out the Medic Mobile blog and join the conversation on the CHT Forum.