Description of Session
In 2017 Jhpiego, a Johns Hopkins University affiliate, partnered with the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children -Tanzania Mainland and the Ministry of Health Zanzibar to implement the USAID Boresha Afya project in Tanzania’s Lake and Western Zone. Jhpiego implemented Open Smart Register Platform (OpenSRP) in line with the government of Tanzania choice as the digital health platform for Community Health Workers (CHWs). OpenSRP is an open source mobile health platform developed for frontline health workers which encompasses CHWs and Facility Health Workers (FHW) that allows them to register their clients and track their health services across continuum of care. The mobile application implemented and completed in Lake and Western Zone in 2019 has been used to address Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (RMNCH) and Malaria challenges including strengthening referral system from community to facility and inter-facilities and closing the gap between health facilities, community health workers and clients thus improving primary health care service delivery, strengthening accountability, aid in decision-making, and generate real-time data for improved monitoring and evaluation. Using OpenSRP, CHWs were able to: register all family members, children under 5; associate the family with a GPS location; view services that are due, and make referrals as required; record key recent health facility services; ask the caregiver questions and monitor children for danger signs; record any health facility services provided; record malaria diagnosis and the treatment provided; receive a notification for follow-up after the client returns to their home etc. Clients were also able to message project phone numbers triggering emergency notifications to the CHW and HFW as well as call a driver for transport or a health facility to help coordinate transport.
