ShareMy.Health improves child nutrition screening in Africa, streamlining processes and ensuring offline reliability for 10,000s of children

Background

In 2023 ShareMy.Health began operating in Africa in partnership with a global nonprofit. The nonprofit has now completed four ShareMy.Health Nutrition pilots in Western Africa (Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria) screening over 2,500 children. Historically, the nonprofit screened an average of 60-120 children per event using paper-based processes.

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Success Criteria

The ShareMy.Health platform met the success criteria of the nonprofit’s pilots, namely:

Tool correctly identifies a child and tracks their weight, height, and age over time
Tool dynamically calculates a child’s risk for malnutrition and stunting in real-time using standardized WHO and country-specific scoring algorithms
Tool requires little training for volunteers to use it effectively
Tool empowers community health workers (CHWs) to review, plan, and intervene fairly immediately
Tool enables program leaders to efficiently monitor and manage child health interventions and track corresponding improvements in child health
Tool passes security and privacy requirements
Tool operates reliably when not connected to the Internet

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Observations

The nonprofit observed the following as they screened children at local community centers:

Streamlined preparation.

Screening event preparation was streamlined and required far less preparation (photocopies, process training, etc.) than paper-based screening programs.

Efficient training.

Volunteer training was reduced to 5-10 minutes, with the tool proving particularly user-friendly and intuitive with volunteers under 30, allowing CHWs to recruit and train new volunteers as they experienced unexpected demand.

Reliable offline capability.

‍Offline mode works surprisingly well, especially on Apple devices. Not only can each device operate offline, but all devices can communicate immediately with one another, greatly streamlining the workflow and providing resilience against absent or unavailable internet.

Increased speed.

End-to-end processing time per child cut by two-thirds, from 25 minutes to just 8 minutes by replacing paper-based processes with this digital health solution.

Higher volume.

Enabled registration, screening, and debriefing of over 300 children per event, a 2.5-fold increase over previous capabilities and a rate impossible to achieve with previous paper-based screening processes.

Immediate engagement.

In some communities, CHWs were observed reviewing malnutrition results immediately and strategizing around personalized intervention responses.

Replacing paper.

‍Eliminated dependency on paper records, enhancing data privacy compliance and alignment with GDPR best-practices.

Organic adoption.

‍Numerous health professionals supporting the screenings requested access to the tool to collaborate with the families and to magnify its impact in the community.

Near real-time monitoring.

‍Regional and headquarters staff could immediately monitor progress and access screening data, a process that took weeks to complete with paper-based screening processes.

At-home screening.

‍Subsequent in-home screening by CHWs was greatly facilitated by the availability of an electronic record, and the families were immediately able to access and record the in-home screening data to track their children’s improvement.

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Challenges

The nonprofit observed the following as challenges during their pilots:

Minor Operational Challenges.

‍Minor difficulties were experienced in operating the tool, requiring sporadic support by regional and headquarters staff. ShareMy.Health rapidly enhanced the application in response to pilot feedback and recommended workarounds to support pilot success.

Authentication Issues.

User account authentication complying with the nonprofit’s strict single sign-on policies is still challenging. ShareMy.Health provided a secure temporary authentication solution that simplified volunteer access, giving the nonprofit time to revisit their authentication strategy.

Android Performance Issues.

‍Some Android tablets experienced performance dips after a few hours, requiring reboots.

Device-specific offline performance.

Offline functionality observed to work best with Apple, Google Pixel, and recent Samsung phones and tablets, acknowledging known limitations with certain Android devices. ShareMy.Health worked with offline solution partner to improve future Android performance.

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Next Steps

The nonprofit will:

Continue expansion. The nonprofit will continue adopting ShareMy.Health, expanding its use to 25 countries.
Explore integration with health professionals and facilities. Based on considerable interest from multiple countries, the nonprofit will explore the privacy, security, and workflow requirements for integrating with these third parties.
Evaluate health improvement trends. At this time, the nonprofit has completed many initial screenings in these countries using ShareMy.Health. Repeat screenings are expected to begin in mid-2024, providing trending insights into nutritional progress.

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Africa Nutrition Case Study