upSCALE

A community health worker decision support tool and information system in Mozambique

Project start date : 01/02/2016

Last updated : 16/03/2022

Beneficiary country : Mozambique

Healthcare themes targeted

  • Mother and child health
  • Nutrition
  • Malaria/paludism
  • Infectious diseases
  • Sexual and reproductive health
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Vaccination

Fields of application

  • Health professional training
  • Information, education and communication for behaviour change (IEC)
  • Patient monitoring and medical data

Stage of development

  • Routine project/operational

Financing method

  • Government agency (USAID, etc.)

Area where the project is utilised

  • Provincial/regional (in one region of a single country)

Economic model(s)

  • Subsidies

What problem does the initiative address ?

The upSCALE platform has been developed to improve quality and coverage of health services at community level by addressing three key community health worker (CHW) programme challenges: poor adherence to clinical guidelines, lack of access to community health information, and insufficient supply of commodities.

Detailed description of the initiative

The platform consists of a multi-media mobile application for community health worker (CHW) decision support, which facilitates the automated management and reporting of routine health indicators to a community health information management system for synthesis and visualization at district, provincial, and national levels in Mozambique. The platform is complemented by a tablet based application for CHW supervisors which permits supervisors to see monthly CHW activity and real-time CHW stock levels. The development of the upSCALE platform initially started under Malaria Consortium’s ‘inSCALE’ project (2009 – 2016), which conducted research to understand the existing ecosystem and used human centered design to identify and develop the Android based electronic decision support application to address CHW needs in Mozambique. Having introduced and evaluated the application among CHWs in a randomized controlled trial, Malaria Consortium worked in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and UNICEF, with funding from the UK Aid, to develop and scale the platform. In Mozambique upSCALE is currently operating in two provinces with 655 CHWs users trained and 300,000 patients registered, with national scale planned by 2022.

What is the proposed solution added value ?

upSCALE fournit un outil audiovisuel d’aide à la décision aux agents de santé communautaires et travaille à l’intégration avec les systèmes nationaux au Mozambique.

655

Number of beneficiaries since launch

7 Full-Time equivalents

10 Employees

N/C Volunteers

2 Service providers

Field report of the project
upSCALE

655

Number of beneficiaries since launch

Target audience

  • Healthcare professionals and structures (hospitals, healthcare centres/clinics, health networks)
  • Sick people

Project objectives

  • Decreased mortality
  • Decreased morbidity
  • Improved treatment

Materials used

  • Smartphone
  • Tablet
  • Computer

Technologies used

  • Mobile telecommunications (without data connection)
  • Internet
  • Geolocation
  • Mobile app (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, HTML5, etc.)

Offline use

Yes

Open source

Yes

Open data

No

Independent evaluation

Yes, auto-evaluated or evaluated by a related organization

About the sponsor

Malaria Consortium

Established in 2003, Malaria Consortium is one of the world’s leading non-profit organisations specialising in prevention, control and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases among vulnerable populations. Our mission is to improve lives in Africa and Asia through sustainable, evidence-based programmes that combat targeted diseases and promote child and maternal health. We will accomplish this together with partners and all levels of government, by: designing and implementing cutting edge research, surveillance, monitoring and evaluation; selectively scaling up and delivering sustainable evidence-based health programmes; providing technical assistance and consulting services that shape and strengthen national and international health policies, strategies and systems and build local capacity; seeking to ensure that our experience, thought leadership, practical findings and research results are effectively communicated and contribute to the coordinated improvement of access to and quality of healthcare. Our areas of expertise include disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment; disease control and elimination; health systems strengthening; research, monitoring and evaluation leading to best practice; behaviour change communication as well as national and international advocacy, and policy development.
With 95 percent of our staff working in malaria endemic areas, we currently have programmes and projects in 12 countries across Africa and Southeast Asia.
Our values are:

To promote a seizing of our programmes by communities and the development of skills
To develop practical and sustainable solutions
To help the most vulnerable populations
To have a real impact and reduce the burden of malaria.

Sector : Institutions (Communities, public authorities, NGOs, foundations, etc.)

Country of origin :

Contact : Sponsor website Project website

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Partners

  • Ministry of Health

    Institutions (Communities, public authorities, NGOs, foundations, etc.)

  • Mozambique

    Institutions (Communities, public authorities, NGOs, foundations, etc.)

  • UNICEF