Using dashboards and tools to provide ‘finger on the pulse’ health system insights and track the impact of our work.  

Digital health and data science holds promise for significant advances in health care access, quality and affordability. By leveraging innovations in digital health and advanced technology, Jacaranda is able to track the impact of its solutions on mums around the country, and share this with our government partners to help them make targeted improvements at the health systems level.  

Data in Action

We use data and insights to Improve government decision-making around targeted public health campaigns, identify challenges in real-time to rapidly deploy resources to specific places, and close a feedback loop within the government health system by empowering our county partners with data, and bringing administrators closer to their clients. Here’s how we’ve used data and insights recently…

‘Having real time data is helping shorten the turnaround time for care, which reduces the chance of losing a mother in need.’ - Esther Hinga, Senior EMONC Program Coordinator

Jacaranda recognized that technology could be used to effectively streamline the process of identifying blood sources. We created a simple and replicable tool, allowing lab managers to input the current blood availability in their facilities, and providers easily track the nearest available blood by type and number of units. 31 facilities across two counties now actively update the tracker an average of 3x per day, and Jacaranda have rolled out a free ‘how-to’ guide, making it easy for other organizations globally to launch and manage their own real time blood supply trackers. Recent innovations to the tool now allow facilities to manage inventory of blood in real time, and it is being used for emergencies beyond maternal and neonatal care. By saving providers precious minutes by empowering them with information, we are helping limit the unnecessary, life-threatening delays in obstetric emergencies - giving nurses more time to do what they do best; care for mothers and babies. 

‘Because of the feedback we receive from PROMPTS, we are now able to understand our clients and their needs better.’ - Christine LOLwerukoi | Lanet Health Center | Nakuru East

It’s impossible to improve health systems without first understanding the experiences of those they serve. Each month, our PROMPTS mums receive an SMS. It asks them to fill out a client experience survey, aimed at better understanding the quality of care they received in facilities. The data is collected in ‘scorecards’ that rate facilities on factors such as respectful care, or number of clinical steps performed which, in turn, helps them take targeted action.

Over the last three years, Nakuru County has seen a decline in maternal mortality rates, linked to improvements in health facilities and greater availability of trained maternity staff and equipment. But there is still a lot to do. We assessed Nakuru over a period of nine months, and found its sub county - Nakuru East - was receiving reports of malpractice in some facilities. We saw that this situation could be reversed by simply providing direct feedback from mums. Scorecards were shared weekly with providers, helping providers identify gaps, and health system managers dig deep into why and where these negative responses were stemming from. Within a month, Nakuru East was the highest performing sub-county of those where Jacaranda operates. By giving mums a voice in the health system, Jacaranda is able to close the feedback loop between patients, providers, and health system managers and drive targeted improvements to care quality.