Description of Session
Since 2003, Tula has worked in partnership with the Ministry of Health in Guatemala to implement a digital health network, which aims to improve the health of vulnerable populations by strengthening the delivery of primary health services in commonly under-served communities. Tula’s digital health network uses smartphone-based technologies to connect more than 4,000 trained front-line health personnel, providing access to telephone, SMS, and Internet-based communication, such as WhatsApp, and a CommCare-based health data application. In 2016, following a period of demonstrated success and sustained partnership with the Ministry of Health, Tula initiated a transition to scale of its digital health network alongside a unique public-private partnership with the Ministry of Health in Guatemala, Tigo Foundation, and Global Affairs Canada. Since initiating its transition to scale, Tula’s digital health initiative has enabled more than 600,000 telephone calls (~10,000/weekly) connecting front-line health personnel, and registered more than 30,000 pregnancy cases and 131,000 malnourished children as part its real-time community-based surveillance system. In this presentation, Tula will discuss its scaling-up approach, based on the International Development Innovation Alliance’s (IDIA) Scaling Pathway, and its lessons learned while implementing a digital health initiative in Guatemala. In Tula's experience, the transition to scale is less a challenge of technical capacity, and more a challenge of designing and implementing a digital health initiative that remains responsive to the actual needs of front-line health personnel. To address this challenge, Tula analyzes the scalability and sustainability of its digital health network by examining influencing factors in the implementation ecosystem; both internal and external or environmental. In doing so, Tula has remained organizationally flexible, while continuing to be responsive to changes in the implementation ecosystem.
