Scaling-Up of Mobile Technology for Community Health (MOTECH) in Ghana

Grameen Foundation, in partnership with Ghana Health Service, aims to expand the successfully piloted MOTECH (Mobile Technology for Community Health) initiative to two new districts in a transition plan towards national scale-up. The program will reach approximately 14,000 pregnant women and 46,000 children under five over the two-year implementation, increasing access to accurate health information, generating increased demand for antenatal, postnatal and neonatal care, and providing detailed data on health service delivery and outcomes to Ghana Health Service. MOTECH has two interrelated mobile applications which focus on improving the health of pregnant women and infants in poor rural areas: Mobile Midwife sends targeted, time-specific, evidence-based voice messages containing important health information to pregnant women and new parents in their local language and the Nurse Application allows community health nurses to electronically record care given to patients so they can easily identify clients in their area due for critical care. If a patient misses scheduled antenatal care, the Mobile Midwife service sends a message to remind the woman to go to the clinic. If she fails to attend, her nurse is alerted via text message enabling the nurse to follow up quickly.