2017 ICT4D Conference

The belief that implemented systems can both improve the service delivery to the individual as well as the quality of the system itself is foundational to the work we do in our maternal health programmes at Praekelt.org. As we begin to expand on MomConnect, the South African Department of Health’s maternal health care platform, one of our key priorities is making the most of mothers’ and patients’ inputs and experiences to inform both the technology and the larger ecosystem it lives within. We make this possible by implementing feedback loops.

Integrating a national SMS help desk and clinic service ratings into the platform sends feedback to geographic districts. These feedback loops have high levels of engagement, with over 27% of services completing service ratings, with over 450k received and processed by the helpdesk, helping us shape our service delivery. Through these calls and responses, we have seen real impact. For example, the NDOH identified a vital iron supplement shortage at the facility level, and has been able to give effective feedback to nurses and clinics consistently.

Moving forward, we are running a large number of experiments in quick succession on our maternal health platforms in the coming years. The experiments are specifically designed towards improving direct patient engagement through feedback loops. We are designing and developing a number of tools and systems to enable these experiments, aggregate the data and analyze the results. We believe that systems built around feedback loops allow us to engage our audience at critical times, enabling better informed decisions to be made at the right times, nudging them towards better health.

We believe these feedback loops have the potential to change the way in which women are involved in effecting change on health care at a national scale, improving their own and children’s well-being and increasing equity.