PMID- 27387548
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20171004
LR  - 20220321
IS  - 1472-6947 (Electronic)
IS  - 1472-6947 (Linking)
VI  - 16
DP  - 2016 Jul 7
TI  - Continuum of Care Services for Maternal and Child Health using mobile technology 
      - a health system strengthening strategy in low and middle income countries.
PG  - 84
LID - 10.1186/s12911-016-0326-z [doi]
LID - 84
AB  - BACKGROUND: Mobile phone technology is utilized for better delivery of health 
      services worldwide. In low-and-middle income countries mobile phones are now 
      ubiquitous. Thus leveraging mHealth applications in health sector is becoming 
      popular rapidly in these countries. To assess the effectiveness of the Continuum 
      of Care Services (CCS) mHealth platform in terms of strengthening the delivery of 
      maternal and child health (MCH) services in a district in Bihar, a resource-poor 
      state in India. METHODS: The CommCare mHealth platform was customized to CCS as 
      one of the innovations under a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates 
      Foundation to improve the maternal and newborn health services in Bihar. The 
      intervention was rolled out in one project district in Bihar, during July 2012. 
      More than 550 frontline workers out of a total of 3000 including Accredited 
      Social Health Activists, Anganwadi Workers, Auxilliary Nurse Midwives and Lady 
      Health Supervisors were trained to use the mHealth platform. The service delivery 
      components namely early registration of pregnant women, three antenatal visits, 
      tetanus toxoid immunization of the mother, iron and folic acid tablet supply, 
      institutional delivery, postnatal home visits and early initiation of 
      breastfeeding were used as indicators for good quality services. The resultant 
      coverage of these services in the implementation area was compared with rest of 
      Bihar and previous year statistics of the same area. The time lag between 
      delivery of a service and its record capture in the maternal and child tracking 
      system (MCTS) database was computed in a random sample of 16,000 beneficiaries. 
      The coverage of services among marginalized and non-marginalized castes was 
      compared to indicate equity of service delivery. Health system strengthening was 
      viewed from the angle of coverage, quality, equity and efficiency of services. 
      RESULTS: The implementation blocks had higher coverage of all the eight indicator 
      services compared to rest of Bihar and the previous year. There was equity of 
      services across castes for all the indicators. Timely capture of data was also 
      ensured compared to paper-based reporting. CONCLUSION: By virtue of its impact on 
      quality, efficiency and equity of service delivery, health care manpower 
      efficiency and governance, the mHealth inclusion at service provision level can 
      be one of the potential strategy to strengthen the health system.
FAU - Balakrishnan, Ramkrishnan
AU  - Balakrishnan R
AD  - CARE India, Patna, India.
FAU - Gopichandran, Vijayaprasad
AU  - Gopichandran V
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0003-2635-9583
AD  - Department of Community Medicine, ESIC Medical College & PGIMSR, KK Nagar, 
      Chennai, 600078, India. vijay.gopichandran@gmail.com.
FAU - Chaturvedi, Sharadprakash
AU  - Chaturvedi S
AD  - CARE India, Patna, India.
FAU - Chatterjee, Rahul
AU  - Chatterjee R
AD  - CARE India, Patna, India.
FAU - Mahapatra, Tanmay
AU  - Mahapatra T
AD  - Department of Epidemiology, Fielding School of Public Health, University of 
      California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, 90095, USA.
FAU - Chaudhuri, Indrajit
AU  - Chaudhuri I
AD  - CARE India, Patna, India.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20160707
PL  - England
TA  - BMC Med Inform Decis Mak
JT  - BMC medical informatics and decision making
JID - 101088682
SB  - IM
MH  - Adult
MH  - Child
MH  - Child Health Services/*standards
MH  - Child, Preschool
MH  - Continuity of Patient Care/*standards
MH  - Delivery of Health Care/*standards
MH  - *Developing Countries
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Infant
MH  - Infant, Newborn
MH  - Maternal Health Services/*standards
MH  - Pregnancy
MH  - Quality of Health Care/*standards
MH  - Telemedicine/*standards
PMC - PMC4937606
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Efficiency
OT  - Health system
OT  - Maternal and child health
OT  - Quality
OT  - mHealth
EDAT- 2016/07/09 06:00
MHDA- 2017/10/05 06:00
PMCR- 2016/07/07
CRDT- 2016/07/09 06:00
PHST- 2016/02/11 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2016/06/19 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2016/07/09 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2016/07/09 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2017/10/05 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2016/07/07 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - 10.1186/s12911-016-0326-z [pii]
AID - 326 [pii]
AID - 10.1186/s12911-016-0326-z [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2016 Jul 7;16:84. doi: 10.1186/s12911-016-0326-z.