In Burkina Faso, a Mobile App Replaces Pen and Paper Records to Help Transform Community Health

By The Global Fund

August 15^th, 2023

Community health worker Marc Ilboudo often provides care to the very youngest children in his village.

Most days, he conducts at-home visits for families living in Pousghin, approximately 30 kilometers northeast of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital city. Other days, patients come directly to his home.

“There are two children, aged 2 and 5 years old, whom I care for here at my home,” he says. “I also do follow-up care for newborns, and any serious cases I refer to the health center.”

In Burkina Faso, a Mobile App Replaces Pen and Paper Records to Help Transform Community Health

Despite high levels of poverty and increasing insecurity, Burkina Faso has made tremendous gains in improving the health of pregnant women and young children over the last two decades. Spurred by investments to fight HIV and malaria, the maternal mortality rate and the number of deaths among children under 5 have both been cut in half.

But despite these gains, Burkina Faso is still among the top 10 countries with the highest number of malaria cases and deaths, with pregnant women and young children most at risk.

Marc and his fellow community health workers – or agents de santé à base communautaire – are vital in accelerating health gains and reaching people who have been left out of this progress.

Technology is now proving vital to this work. This includes equipping health workers like Marc with digital tools and digitizing community health data so that it can be easily shared for improved disease surveillance and response.

“We are not going to accelerate progress in community health care by maintaining the status quo,” says Dr. Bry Sylla, Head of Service of Planning, Coordination and Promotion of Information and Communications Technology in Health at Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Health. “We are committed to digitizing community health because technology has the potential to strengthen individual care and entire health systems.”

Now included in Marc’s kit of medical supplies is a mobile phone, which he uses for every consultation.

His phone is equipped with Mhealth_Burkina, a digital application designed to improve the ease and efficiency of his work, capture key health data on each patient and share this information with the wider health system.

Mhealth_Burkina is part of Burkina Faso’s roadmap to digitize community health care. The nation-wide plan is supported by several partners, including the Global Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation through the Data Science Catalytic Fund. This fund, which combines technology, expertise, technical assistance and capacity building, aims to break down barriers to health care and improve community health information systems. The Data Science Catalytic Fund currently invests in four countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda.

Prior to using the application, Marc and his colleagues relied on a paper-based system. He didn't have a tool to review a patient’s medical history, he used manuals to advise on diagnosis and treatment, and he would then record the outcome of each of his consultations using pen and paper.

The health data he recorded would be reported to the local health facility, but data quality issues, such as data omission or duplication, was a challenge. Using paper records and manuals was cumbersome and time-consuming.

Marc says that moving away from the paper-based system to the mobile application has had many benefits.

Now he can immediately bring up a patient’s medical records using the application. He receives the latest guidance on diagnosis and treatment, referrals and follow-ups, and registering a patient twice or leaving out important information is far less likely to happen.

“The app has brought a lot of changes for me,” says Marc. “Before, I would look in a notebook for information to determine (the child’s age). Then I would consult the guide...to find out how many tablets the child should take. But now the device explains it all. So that does guide us a lot.”

The application also includes courses that Marc and his colleagues can use to refresh their skills at a time that works best for them.

But the benefits of digitization go well beyond the day-to-day work of community health workers. Individual patients benefit by receiving more accurate diagnoses and precise care, as well as information on disease prevention and early intervention.

The next step will be connecting the health data that Marc and his colleagues capture through Mhealth_Burkina to DHIS2, a centralized health management information system, so decision-makers will have a more comprehensive and accurate picture of community health. This will strengthen early surveillance of disease outbreaks and lead to a more rapid and effective response.

The deployment of Mhealth_Burkina started in early 2022 and is now being used in nine regions and 12 health districts across Burkina Faso, reaching more than 4,000 community health workers. Plans are being developed to roll out the technology across the entire country.

By digitizing community health care, families like Pauline Salou and her 11-day old baby can expect to get more accurate diagnosis as well as better care and information on disease prevention.

Footnotes

Written by Melanie Sharpe. Reporting and photos by Olympia de Maismont. Special thanks to Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Health. The mention of specific companies, services, or products of manufacturers does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by the Global Fund in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned, or that the Global Fund is making any representation with respect to the ownership of associated intellectual property rights.