Keywords: Health, Digitalization
Momconnect innovation by the National Department of Health, South Africa uses mobile tools to register pregnancies in South Africa. Once registered the system will send to each mother 100 stage based- messages to support her and her bay during the pregnancy, child birth and up to the first birthday of the child.
It uses USSD (Unstructured, Supplementary Service data) expectant mothers are connected to health information through a mobile phone. The intuitive strengthens the information system by providing a mechanism for electronically registering all pregnancies in the public health system as early as possible using unique ID number. It also strengthens both demand and supply side of health system by providing pregnant women with an interactive mechanism to feedback on the service they have received.
MomConnect, is unique in that it provides two-way interaction rather than simple one-way messaging. By providing channels for patient feedback, it generates useful information to inform and strengthen the quality of health services. Future plans are to make the innovation current and sustainable. Since 98% percent of the mothers registered acknowledged that information system was useful, the initiative contributed to the improvement of health services in Africa.