A Framework for the Adoption of Emerging Technologies to Reduce Under-Five Mortality in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Under-five mortality remains a global health concern as many countries have failed to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4). Children under five (under-fives) continue to perish to preventable deaths globally. Zimbabwe is amongst the Sub-Saharan African countries that failed to achieve the MDG 4 on under-five mortality. Regardless of evidence from other regions that emerging technologies help eliminate preventable deaths among under-fives, Zimbabwe's adoption of such technologies in public health facilities remains nascent. The country has introduced some digital health technologies in public facilities, but they are not specific to paediatric care. Likewise, research on digital health in Zimbabwe has paid little attention to paediatric care. Therefore, this study proposes a framework for adopting and utilizing emerging technologies to reduce under-five mortality in Zimbabwe's public health facilities. The pragmatism philosophy guided the study. It employed a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design to explore factors affecting the adoption of emerging technologies in Zimbabwe's public health facilities, and the perceived role of emerging technologies, with the aim of designing a technology adoption framework. Future studies could focus on integrating the existing digital health systems in Zimbabwe to harness the data generated to enhance paediatric care through utilizing such data in paediatric care information systems.