Community Health Volunteers Improve Quality of Care in Madagascar through Digital Health

Community Health Volunteers Improve Quality of Care in Madagascar through Digital Health

Community health volunteers (CHVs) in Madagascar serve as first-line health care providers for many communities located more than five kilometers from a basic health center (CSB). They provide routine services for family planning and maternal, newborn, and child health, and refer patients for appropriate higher-level services.

CHVs collect and report health service data to the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) through paper-based forms and logs.This data is aggregated up through the health system and used by the MOPH to inform health policy programmatic strategies, health planning, and other decision-making. However, the system causes considerable time gaps between data collection and use, and is vulnerable to data recording and reporting errors at multiple levels. Furthermore, CHVs working in remote areas lack regular access to supervision and support to ensure the quality of services. Instead, they rely on paper-based job aids, which are heavy to carry along with reporting forms and client registers when they conduct door-to-door visits in their communities.

To address these challenges, the MOPH developed a mobile health (mHealth) initiative with the support of USAID Madagascar through the USAID Mikolo Project, implemented by Management Sciences for Health.