Towards an Integrated mHealth Platform for Community-based Maternity Health Workers in Low-Income Communities

Abstract

A variety of actors with diverse perspectives such as maternity health workers (MHWs), pregnant women, providers and other community organizations constitute the perinatal services system designed for low-income communities. Yet, little is known about the nature of service delivery challenges that seem inevitable in this setting. We sought to understand prenatal services system from the perspective of MHWs and identify areas that can be improved by mHealth solutions. We collected qualitative data from twenty-eight target MHWs via an online survey, and used the open coding approach to identify themes. The findings showed that MHWs face a number of challenges while providing services like education, referrals etc. Notable challenges were lack of coordination with other stakeholders, unmet professional development needs, maintaining privacy and difficulties with client education, communication and record exchange. MHWs expressed the need for innovative technologies to facilitate client education and open communication with other maternity health actors. Our findings suggest that there is a great demand for communication and service delivery tools in community-based MHWs. But, new solution need to be integrated within existing tools and environment while empowering MHWs with professional and educational support.