2017 ICT4D Conference

Mobile phone technology is utilized for better delivery of health services worldwide. In low-and-middle income countries mobile phones are now ubiquitous. Thus, leveraging mHealth applications in health sector is becoming popular rapidly in these countries. CARE India also conducted Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to assess the effectiveness of the Continuum of Care Services (CCS) through mHealth platform in terms of strengthening the delivery of maternal and child health (MCH) services in a district in Bihar, a resource-poor state in India. The intervention was rolled out in the Saharsa District of Bihar in eastern part of India in the month of June 2012 and the study completed in the month of August 2014 with 550+ frontline workers in the intervention area. The study results were promising which were later shared with Ministries of Women and Child Development to consider the mHealth application for scale up. With the additional features of this app being scaled in selected blocks/districts of eight states in India proposed to cover 100000+ Anganwadi workers in the name of ICDS Common Application Software (ICDS-CAS). CARE India has been selected to train the various stakeholders in those implementation states. We would like to share our experiences and challenges faced from rigorous research to large scale of mHealth app in ICT4D conference.