Jingmeng Xie International Development in Practice-Essay#2 11/13/2013

Dimagi is a privately held social enterprise founded in 2002 with its headquarter in Massachusetts. Their goal is to utilize modern technology to improve overall quality of life around the globe. Dimagi designs clinical interfaces, health information systems and mobile technologies to perform patient-level disease management, clinical decision support, and health system monitoring. It has now performed its technical strategy, systems design, software development, and health research for over 130 projects in over 30 countries with 50 organizations. The companys product CommCare is a cloud-based, enterprise level platform and was launched in 2011. The platform is designed to empower mobile workers through an electronic job aid and data collection and provide reporting and analytics within an organization. Its a tool that connects individuals with social works, creates and converts basic messages into data for analysis. The system includes two-way synchronization of data with mobile devices and the ability to restore a user's data in case of phone damage or loss. It promotes links between beneficiaries, mobile users, and facilities. All data collected with CommCare Mobile is automatically sent over a cellular data network to Dimagis HIPAA-compliant server (Health Insurance Portability And Accountability) called CommCareHQ when connectivity is available. Data is stored in phone while connectivity is not available and thus wont be lost. The platform supports authoring tools to allow organizations to adapt or create their own forms and modules. These data includes basic information, multiple choice questions, images, video, bar codes and GPS coordinated with their automatic data validation and advanced logic of data collection.(Pic.1) CommCare is not only a useful tool in data collection, but also good in managing clients through their online control server CommCareHQ and through a CommCare

Jingmeng Xie International Development in Practice-Essay#2 11/13/2013

mobile device. Through case management service, community health workers who routinely visit the same clients can manage the entire life-cycle of a case without any need for network connectivity. This function can perform completely offline and through it, organizations are able to view all registered cases and see how case data has changed over time. The automated case activity reports also help monitoring how often mobile workers are visiting their clients (Pic. 2). CommCareHQ is easy to use. Users can edit, and deploy a mobile application, install or update an application remotely. One can also communicate quickly and inexpensively with distributed workforce. The automated SMS reminder tool can effectively improve the follow-up work of community health workers (Pic. 3). In area of low literacy, CommCare solves this communication issue by combining multimedia in counseling. To decrease reliance on text, CommCareSense offers a simplified mobile interface that emphasizes visual cues over text and users can take advantage of this service. This service has been proved by a focus group in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in India with community health workers that has a positive effect on staffs confidence, performance and credibility, as well as clients engagement (Pic. 4). Active Data Management is a new service provided by Dimagi that enables programs with mobile workforces to access, interpret, follow-up and track actions taken on their CommCare project data. It ensures CommCare is used consistently, correctly and enable mobile workers to provide high quality services to clients. It does so by providing timely, interpretable reports of mobile workers activities, performance and can be used to targeted follow-up actions for mobile workers and track those actions through completion (Pic.5). Along with CommCare targeting the community health workers, Dimagis another mobile product CommConnect provides a platform for building messaging applications though

Jingmeng Xie International Development in Practice-Essay#2 11/13/2013

SMS and IVR (interactive voice response). This product integrates with information collected through CommCare and interacts directly with clients by either sending conditional reminders and two-way surveys or sending broadcast communication or large scale surveys. Users can manage the data again through CommCareHQ. It can help in appointment and medication remind, counseling messages timed or on demand, simple data collection or large-scale surveys. Dimagi is a for profit organization, but it supports organization who are interested with 50 mobile worker systems for free and allow you to experience the software with several free features such as mobile data collection, web based data analysis, management and CommCare Exchange which is a platform where organizations can share their project with others. However, to use CommConnect service, users have to pay. CommCare applications span a variety of health areas, including nutrition, antenatal care, neonatal care, family planning, and case management of child illness, as well as in processes for improving accountability and supervision. I have a chance to register and use the free trial of CommCareHQ and found the management panel is easy to use. The message can be sent in hundreds of different languages that most of the organizations should find no problem. In CommCareHQ, comprehensive tutorials are provided to users, along with model project designs for first time users. To our client Ford Family Program who is looking for a new mobile tool for their new maternal clinic in Kenya based on an existing dispensary. They wish the tool could help them reach out to the local women and provide them with maternal services. Since the maternal clinic is still at planning stage, the clinic also seeks ways to understand the local needs in order to decide what services they should provide. CommCare concept can help them in several ways. On one hand, the clinic is able to understand the local needs through conducting needs assessments

Jingmeng Xie International Development in Practice-Essay#2 11/13/2013

with CommCare system. It is a good platform that can help the clinic collect feedbacks from the field in a more efficient way. With CommCare and several community health workers, the clinic is able to survey the local women who are preparing for or during a pregnancy to understand their needs by evaluating their accessibility, affordability, pregnancy and nutrition knowledge etc. Clinic survey can also base on different locations or areas. By comparing the data from different locations, the clinic is able to understand best service locations and best way to access people. On the other hand, if the program chooses to use Commconnect, the clinic is able to communicate directly with patients and provides them with tailored health information, reminds, and even treatments based on their feedback from CommCare. With this service, it reduces clinical visits for those who have access difficulty due to distance, family or health issue. One common concern about using mobile health that usually rise up is limited technology resources at places we serve. CommCare doesnt require a smart phone to function. Though it still only has four operation systems to choose from at this stage (S40, S60, Windows and android), the first S40 operation system phone was released in 1999 and should be durable under most circumstances.

Nokia 7110 (the first S40 system)

Jingmeng Xie International Development in Practice-Essay#2 11/13/2013

Pic. 1 Sample Question Design

Pic.2 Sample Case Management

Jingmeng Xie International Development in Practice-Essay#2 11/13/2013

Pic. 3 Sample Worker Management

Pic. 4 Sample Multimedia Message

Jingmeng Xie International Development in Practice-Essay#2 11/13/2013

Pic. 5 Sample Active Data Management (ADM)

http://www.commcarehq.org/users/publications/ http://www.dimagi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/2012-DimagiBenefitReport.pdf http://www.commcarehq.org/home/ http://www.commcarehq.org/software-plans/