Digitizing Maternal Care
The Digitizing Maternal Care project tackled one of Kenya's most persistent health-system failures: fragmented, paper-based maternal records that followed no single mother from antenatal booking through postnatal follow-up. Community Health Workers (CHWs) operated with paper registers that were lost, damaged, or simply never transferred when mothers moved clinics or gave birth outside a facility. The result was a dangerous gap in continuity of care that cost lives.
Keeping Mothers Connected Across Every Point of Care
The Digitizing Maternal Care project tackled one of Kenya's most persistent health-system failures: fragmented, paper-based maternal records that followed no single mother from antenatal booking through postnatal follow-up. Community Health Workers (CHWs) operated with paper registers that were lost, damaged, or simply never transferred when mothers moved clinics or gave birth outside a facility. The result was a dangerous gap in continuity of care that cost lives.
"When mothers move between clinics, their records don't follow them — this single failure accounts for 30% of missed postnatal follow-ups in peri-urban areas. Designing a lightweight, offline-capable digital identity for maternal records closes this gap without requiring hospitals to upgrade infrastructure."
The Problem
Three interlocking failures created a system where continuity of care was structurally impossible.
Fragmented care
Each facility maintained siloed paper registers with no shared identifier, making continuity impossible when mothers transferred between clinics.
Lost record continuity
30% of postnatal visits were missed because CHWs had no way to know which mothers had already delivered or received care elsewhere.
Invisible complications
High-risk pregnancies flagged at one facility were invisible to the next, preventing timely intervention and increasing maternal mortality risk.
Our Approach
A structured, collaborative design methodology implemented across six sequential stages.
Community Listening
Deep ethnographic research with 120 CHWs across 6 counties to map paper-based workflows.
Co-Design Sprints
Iterative prototyping sessions with frontline CHWs to design a tool they could own.
Pilot & Learn
3-month pilots in 2 counties with weekly feedback loops before broader rollout.
Platform Architecture
Offline-first mobile platform with a unique maternal ID that persisted across facilities.
System Integration
Connected to existing DHIS2 national health database for Ministry of Health reporting.
Outputs & Results
Measurable outcomes achieved through the programme's core activities.
of paper records digitized in pilot counties
young innovators trained as digital health CHWs
of innovators completed the 6-month programme
of innovators secured employment within 3 months
of innovators are women and girls
volunteer hours contributed to community clinics
Measuring Success
Success was defined not by technology adoption but by health outcomes. We tracked postnatal follow-up completion rates, record integrity across facility transfers, and CHW confidence scores before and after deployment. Every metric was co-designed with the Ministry of Health to ensure alignment with national health system KPIs.
Partners
As we work to scale health systems across Africa, we are proud to partner with leading national and global organizations.
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