afyamama+
Case Study: Empowering Community Health Workers (CHWs) with tools to improve Maternal & Child Health outcomes.
CONTEXT
Mandera County, Kenya, faces significant healthcare challenges, particularly in maternal and child health. With a limited central repository for health records outside the hospital system and limited visibility into the outreach of government health services, critical data on underserved populations remains inaccessible.
To address these gaps, I designed a conceptual digital health intervention: a Community Health Worker (CHW) app aimed at collecting and collating maternal and child health data. This app’s goal is to empower CHWs, improve data visibility, and support county health officials in identifying prevalent health risks and monitoring.
TIME PERIOD
Jan 2025
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
TEAM
Solo
COMMISSION
Conceptual
UX RESEARCH
I encountered the the all-too-common challenge of limited access to resources for conducting a full research process.
To overcome this, I leveraged data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), and more specifically, from the following report - Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022 (Both the Main Reports & County Fact Sheets, specifically for Mandera County).
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Health workers in Mandera County operate in remote regions with limited infrastructure, making it difficult to:
1. Maintain & access centralised health records.
2. Map the outreach & effectiveness of health services.
3. Identify undeserved households & individuals.
At the regional level, health officials lack real time data to evaluate coverage & prioritise interventions, further compounding these challenges.
An ideal solution would streamline data collection and reporting, plus improve service delivery visualization,
thereby enabling actionable insights.
Who Would Use This?
Primary Users: CHWs responsible for household visits, data collection, and health education.
Secondary Users: County government health officials monitoring health metrics and resource allocation.
Key Insights:
Pain Points
- No centralised system for health records.
- Lack of tools to map service outreach & identify gaps.
- Difficulty in tracking CHW performance and ensuring efficient resource use.
Goals
- Provide CHWs with tools to manage household & individual health data effectively.
- Equip health officials with insights for strategic, data driven decision-making.
THE IDEA
An app for CHWs with the following functionality & set of features:
1. Household Management: Add & edit household details with offline sync capabilities.
2. Data Visualization: Viewable metrics on outreach and coverage to cover decision making.
3. Referral System: Refer patients to health facilities & track adherence.
4. Educational Resources: In app access to health related guides & training materials.
5. Resource Tracking: Tools to manage the inventory of medical kits, supplements and any materials that CHWs might use during household visits.
The Login Screen is designed for simplicity, with the added feature of being able to switch to a using the language the user is most comfortable with. Once authenticated, users are directed to the Home Screen, which displays an overview of upcoming visits, daily tasks, inventory status & important updates.
The Sidebar menu offers a structured way to access key app features, but those unlikely to be used on a day-to-day (hence it remains hidden when not in use). Among these are Profile & App settings, the Sync & Back Up button, Inventory Management and a way to check adherence to Referrals.
(L-R)
Screen 1 provides a detailed Household Profile View, including members, health history, past visits & notes. CHWs can log updates & schedule next visits. If in a remote region, offline functionality allows data entry with syncing available later when the CHW is online.
Screen 2 is an In-App Library of essential health guidelines to support CHWs while they are in the field.
Screen 3 gives an Overview of Metrics of individual CHW performance (tasks completed) and their health impact (total visits, high risk cases flagged, areas covered etc). This data is collated from all CHWs & then integrated into a Regional Database.
What Sets This App Apart?
Localised Design: The interface is kept very simple, and reflects the phones the CHWs might be using (i.e. older or more basic smartphones, likely with older Operating Systems) ensuring compatibility & better accessibility.
Offline Functionality: CHWs can collect data offline, then sync it when connectivity is available, thereby working within infrastructural limitations.
The app’s integration with a regional database offers powerful tools for county health officials to monitor progress and make data-driven decisions. Key features include:
Real-Time Insights: Aggregated data from CHWs provides officials with timely (daily/weekly/monthly) metrics on maternal and child health, such as antenatal visit coverage, vaccination rates, high-risk cases etc.
Coverage Visualization: Maps display outreach data by region, highlighting underserved areas and enabling targeted interventions.
Resource Allocation: Officials can view inventory levels and distribution trends for essential items like vaccines, supplements, and medical kits, ensuring resources are deployed where they are needed most.
(Future Facing)
Trend Analysis: The dashboard can track changes in key metrics over time, such as improvements in CHW performance, reductions in high-risk cases, or increases in vaccination uptake.
Policy Impact: Insights from the database can help evaluate the effectiveness of health policies and programs, guiding future initiatives.
By connecting CHWs’ on-the-ground work with centralized analytics, the database integration enables a coordinated and effective response to health challenges.
Regional Database Integration
METRICS FOR SUCCESS
Since the app is untested, success metrics are hypothetical but could focus on the following areas:
Task Completion Rates: Percentage of tasks, visits & demographics completed by CHWs weekly.
Coverage Improvement: Increase in the percentage of households visited and individuals served.
Referral Adherence: Ratio of referred patients who accessed hospital care.
High-Risk Case Follow-Ups: Percentage of flagged cases successfully resolved.
CHALLENGES & LEARNING
This project was largely conceptual, developed without field testing or real user feedback. While this limits insights into usability and effectiveness, it allowed for an unrestricted exploration of innovative solutions.
One approach to validate the app’s utility would involve piloting it in a small region, gathering user feedback, and iterating based on CHWs’ needs and workflows.
This project also gave me insight into thinking about designing for multiple user flows - in this case, for both CHWs & County Health Officials - reinforcing my end-to-end thinking skills.
CONCLUSION
afyamama+ is a conceptual digital health intervention aimed at improving maternal and child health outcomes in Mandera County. By addressing gaps in data collection, integration, and service mapping, it empowers CHWs and county health officials to make data-driven decisions. Although untested, this project demonstrates how user-centered design can create meaningful solutions for underserved communities.
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