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In rural India, mobile phones can mean better health care.
India has nearly 1 billion mobile phone subscribers. It also has one of the highest rates of maternal deaths in the world. So when India’s government began looking for ways to harness mobile technology to improve health care, IntraHealth responded with mSakhi, a simple mobile app that helps frontline health workers better care for women and newborns.
Since 2006, the government of India has trained over 820,000 community health workers called ASHAs, or accredited social health activists, to reach the country’s most impoverished and remote communities. But many ASHAs lack literacy skills, which can make it difficult for them to update their knowledge.
Now the highly visual and auditory mSakhi not only helps ASHAs who have access to it to update their skills, but also serves as a resource during client interactions. The app helps ASHAs counsel families on everything from birth preparedness to caring for a sick newborn. With mSakhi, one ASHA said, “mothers and their family members listen to me more seriously.”
Read more about IntraHealth’s work in India: