|
CMC's
IHC system, based on personal digital
assistants (PDAs) designed with suitable
icons for semi-literate ANMs, allows micro-management
of public health services in Andhra Pradesh
villages
The
product
IHC: India Health Care Project
An IT aid for rural health
workers to deliver quality healthcare
The
client
The Department of Health and Family Welfare,
Andhra Pradesh
The department that implements
various programmes relating to family
welfare, including mother and child healthcare
and family planning services in a state.
The
Department of Health and Family Welfare
of the government of Andhra Pradesh wanted
to evolve an effective strategy to improve
basic health care services for the people
in the villages through auxiliary nurse
midwives (ANMs). ANMs play a key
role in providing necessary counselling,
first aid, preliminary diagnosis for simple
ailments, promotion of various family
planning methods, immunisation, coordinating
malaria and TB eradication programmes,
helping in pre / post and ante-natal care
and distribution of common medicines,
in the entire state
of Andhra Pradesh.
Details
The government provides health care
services for the people in the villages
through auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs).
The main feature of the project is the
use of mobile devices called personal
digital assistants (PDAs)
for data capturing, data transmission
and report generation.
The
solution being developed follows the principle
of a user-centered design. It consists
of PDAs, computers and communication technologies
designed and integrated with the specific
goal of saving the time of ANMs and helping
them to deliver quality health care with
a timely response to emergency conditions.
The
PDAs are used to record the information
about the health conditions of the village.
The information server — the PHC
computer — collects this information
from the PDAs and develops a database.
From this, the system generates reminders
for immunisation, ante- and post-natal
care, family planning and various other
scheduled programs. The schedule so generated
helps the ANMs to know which households
need to be visited that day. She can find
out at a glance, which households have
persons at-risk who need attention. She
receives the latest instructions from
the district headquarters, transferred
into her system during the regular data
exchange with the server at her immediate
supervisor's site, for a particular type
of ailment or a new method, either on
demand or at a time when it is needed.
From
the District Health Centre, the data enters
the existing state and national health
data systems, through a National Informatics
Centre network (NICnet), which is already
in place.
Benefits
|
|
The
system yields broad health indices
of:
|
|
Status
of health of children with specific
reference to immunisation |
|
|
Health
of women with specific reference
to pregnant women and young
women |
|
|
Target
list and progress of family
planning activities |
|
|
Status
of infectious diseases like
TB, Malaria etc as well as incidence
of other diseases |
|
|
|
Add-up encounters. Say the number
of immunisations of particular kind
in a particular village. This indicates
the task ahead for a given month.
Based on this information, schedules
are prepared for each activity, indicating
each worker's accomplishment. |
|
|
The
system helps to work out the requirements
of vaccines and drugs of different
types needed in the area, as well
as the total requirement for the next
six months, based on the monthly information. |
|
