Mdtf Office, Bureau of Management, Undp

We at the UN in Mauritania are committed to supporting the Mauritanian Government's efforts to drastically reduce maternal mortality. UN agencies (WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF) are supporting the Ministry of Health to better identify malfunctions in obstetric care and to improve the situation. They also support the ministry to supply health centers with life-saving products and medicines. Faster information...could it save lives? The Mauritanian government needs faster data to know why women are dying and to target resources to save lives. They also want more up to date status on stocks of essential products and medicines in maternity hospitals, pediatric units and health center pharmacies to prevent stock outs and be able to respond quickly to breaks in critical supplies. In thinking of new ways to solve this issue, we looked at one critical asset: an over 90 percent mobile phone penetration rate in Mauritania. So we assumed that a real time monitoring system might be able to help. For almost a year now, together with the Mauritanian Ministry of Health and Community Systems Foundation - CSF, we have been working to design a real time monitoring tool in three health centers in Nouakchott, which despite being the capital still constitutes 80 percent of the maternal deaths in Mauritania. We wanted healthcare providers to be able to report in real time (less than 24 hours) maternal deaths and drug inventory. We decided to use smart phones because they are less expensive than tablets and at least in Noakchott they are very common. We also couldn't use basic phones because they couldn't handle the volume of data we needed. Once data is recorded through a mobile survey using an open source tool, Ministry professionals can consult the information through key performance indicators on an inter-active dashboard. So we tested it out. Nurses, midwives and doctors loved it. The app also attracted considerable interest among the other players in the health structures tested. If you are considering a similar solution, let us save ...