Ghana’s Upper East Regional Health Directorate has introduced an electronic system dubbed Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTeCH) in the Kasena-Nankana district to facilitate health care delivery in the region, the Daily Ghana Guide reported.
The system allows users to receive voice messages in their local languages or dialects, namely Kassim, Nankam or English, via the mobile phones. It also reminds the users on such essentials as when the children are due for immunizations, or prenatal and postnatal care.
The system, which has ability to generate monthly reports, can reduce the amount of time nurses spend on reporting, it also generates the alerts according to the schedule set by the Ghana Health service.
Health specialists enter the client’s data, or the services delivered, into simple forms on mobile phones subsequently uploaded to the MoTeCH server, which stores information in individual client records.
The Daily Ghana Guide quoted Allison Stone, MoTeCH Program Manager, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, as saying “the tool is one of many projects seeking to utilize mobile phones for health and development – the mHealth.”
However, the system has faced a number of challenges including mother’s lack of access to phones, low phone literacy as well as limited opportunities for charging phones, according to the Daily Ghana Guide.
Stone however said MoTeCH is being assertively scaled up to four Ghanaian districts such as Awutu Senya and Gomoa in the Central region, North Tongu in the Volta region and Builsa in the Upper East region.
The system is a collaborative project of the Ghana Health Service, Columbia University, and the Grameen Foundation. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds the project.
