Description of Session
The mHBS/DHIS2 app is a suite of free, open-source digital health tools, built within the DHIS2 platform, to support healthcare providers in low/middle-income countries (LMICs) as they are educated, trained, and implement evidence-based maternal-newborn health (MNH) initiatives, including: Helping Babies Survive and Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (EmONC). mHBS/DHIS2 is a Java-based tool which operates on a wide variety of Android devices, and allows for off-line data collection. Key functionalities of the mHBS/DHIS2 app include: education, training, data collection, quality improvement, data visualization/dashboards, and project management. The mHBS/DHIS2 app facilitates linkage among digital and web-based educational, training, and implementation resources that have been developed by various partners, as well as to materials produced by global organizations at the forefront of policy, guidelines, and curriculum development for evidence-based maternal-newborn-child health initiatives, such as the World Health Organization, and international/national professional development associations (e.g., International Confederation of Midwives; Nursing Council of Kenya). Any partner with an Android-based digital tool (e.g., SafeDelivery App, from Maternity Foundation) or on-line toolkit can be linked with the mHBS/DHIS2 app. Thus, mHBS/DHIS2 equips healthcare providers with “one stop” access to, and linkage of, key resources and tools that are of particular importance to them in their educational, training, and clinical service trajectories – on their own digital devices (smart phones and tablets). With partners from Moi University (Kenya), Lagos University (Nigeria), University of Washington (Seattle, USA) and Oxford University (UK), and funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we are currently field testing, in Kenya and Nigeria, the feasibility and acceptability of a virtual reality neonatal resuscitation training module, “eHBB,” embedded within the mHBS/DHIS2 app, among Providers at 18 African health facilities across the 2 countries.
