Kenya faces a significant challenge with one of the highest maternal mortality rates globally, recording 39 deaths for every 1,000 live births each year. Alarmingly, approximately 30% of maternal fatalities in Kenya are attributed to delays in accessing healthcare. Statistically, 62% of women do not receive the recommended four antenatal visits, and 43% neglect to attend postnatal checkups. This lack of critical health services and education heightens the risks of maternal and neonatal mortality. Many mothers lack the necessary information to make informed decisions regarding when and where to seek care.
Jacaranda Health, a nonprofit organization based in Kenya, is dedicated to eliminating preventable maternal and newborn deaths by implementing cost-effective, sustainable solutions that enhance the quality of care within government health systems. Recognized as a recipient of the 2021 AWS IMAGINE Grant from Amazon Web Services (AWS)—a public grant designed for registered 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the United States that leverage cloud technology to tackle pressing global challenges—Jacaranda Health is making significant strides. One of their pivotal initiatives utilizes AWS to power a health platform that employs artificial intelligence (AI) to equip mothers with timely information about pregnancy care, including potentially life-saving guidance and referrals to care facilities when urgently required.
Transforming Health Behaviors to Eliminate Preventable Maternal and Newborn Mortality
To ensure mothers receive the essential information needed to seek timely care, Jacaranda Health recognized the need for an affordable, user-friendly, and scalable solution. They turned to AWS for their cloud-based digital health platform named PROMPTS (PROmoting Mums through Pregnancy Through SMS). This no-cost SMS service sends text messages or “nudges” that encourage health-seeking behaviors based on the specific stage of a mother’s pregnancy. Built on RapidPro, an open-source platform designed for creating mobile messaging services, PROMPTS utilizes Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).
PROMPTS was tailored to meet the actual needs and realities of mothers. Thanks to AWS Cloud services, the platform can deliver vital health information to mothers anytime, anywhere—even in remote and underserved areas. Moreover, it collects critical information from mothers regarding key health priorities, such as attendance at pre- and post-natal check-ups, experiences with care facilities, and updates on their baby’s immunization status. This data feeds into a continuous feedback loop, allowing Jacaranda Health to enhance its program delivery.
The platform also features an AI-enabled two-way helpdesk service that responds to thousands of messages from mothers daily in both English and Swahili. Through natural language processing (NLP), PROMPTS analyzes incoming messages for clinical danger signs and promptly notifies Jacaranda Health’s clinical help desk agents—who are trained nurses and medics—enabling them to respond swiftly and refer mothers to the nearest care facility.
While mobile phones are widespread in Kenya, internet-based telecommunications are less common. Therefore, PROMPTS communicates via SMS in both English and Swahili. For example, a message sent during the first trimester reads: “Watch for danger signs in pregnancy. Do you experience vaginal bleeding, severe nausea, vomiting, fever or severe abdominal pain? If you see any of these danger signs, respond with an explanation of what you are seeing and go to the nearest hospital immediately.”
In addition to the direct services offered to mothers, Jacaranda Health leverages Amazon Glue to amalgamate extensive data into a sophisticated data warehouse infrastructure built with Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS). Using Amazon QuickSight, the organization can analyze large datasets with real-time analytics, visualization, and reporting. All data collected is anonymized, and personal identifiable information (PII) is stringently controlled, secured, and encrypted from the moment of collection through to transfer and storage.
The strategic application of collected data enables Jacaranda Health to optimize program design by connecting disparate datasets visually and building insightful dashboards. This creates a detailed understanding of how mothers engage with the platform, aiding in the optimization of message flows and other functionalities in PROMPTS. The data also provides nurses and health system managers with real-time insights to address systemic weaknesses in care quality, enhance service delivery, and allocate resources effectively.
Jacaranda Health Achieves New Milestones and Continues to Expand on AWS
Jacaranda Health currently serves over 1.5 million mothers throughout Kenya, collaborating with a network of more than a thousand government partner hospitals and health facilities. These mothers come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, age groups, geographies, and levels of digital connectivity. So far, mothers using PROMPTS are 22% more likely to achieve the recommended number of antenatal visits, 3.5 times more likely to seek care if they experience danger signs after delivery, and twice as likely to engage in family planning.
According to Jay Patel, Jacaranda Health’s technology lead, “Thanks to the AWS IMAGINE Grant, we are well-positioned to rapidly scale our locally-developed solutions to improve health outcomes for more mothers and babies, not just in Kenya but beyond. Strengthening our existing technology is vital for this future growth, and doing so in a cost-efficient, context-specific manner will ensure the sustainability of our programs as a long-term national resource.” For further insights on this subject, you can check out this article, as they are an authority on this topic.
By harnessing cloud technology to establish a secure, flexible, and scalable technological foundation, Jacaranda Health empowers mothers by putting essential data and decision-making tools in their hands. Looking ahead, Jacaranda Health plans to expand further, aiming for a critical mass of public hospitals to enhance Kenya’s healthcare system and beyond. For additional information, this is an excellent resource: this video.
For more stories related to nonprofits and technology, you can see this blog post as well.
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