USC Global Impact:
Frontline SMS for Healthcare |
 |
|
|
|
The FrontlineSMS for Healthcare team aims to empower outreach workers and staff at Bhoruka Charitable Trust by employing a SMS-based communications network in Dharwad District to simplify information flows. The technology’s pilot uses focus on the prevention activities of a targeted HIV/AIDS intervention among the female sex worker community. The team is working closely with BCT and its funding agency The Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT) to track referrals for HIV testing, target follow up visits, and report critical information from the field back to the District Office.
They have been asked to and document their experiences using some of the latest multi-media technology and blog while they are working oversees. You can also follow the team on Twitter.
WHAT THEY ACCOMPLISHED
The team worked closely with a local NGO to focus on HIV/AIDS prevention and testing, and with its funding agency, to implement a cell-phone communication network based on the use of low-cost SMS messaging that would improve the organization’s communication and information management.
Using open-source free software (Frontline SMS), the team designed two SMS-based applications around a referral slip and a system of summary reports. The team converted the existing paper referral slip (used for such services as STD and HIV testing) into a SMS-enabled form. This allows the NGO administrators to more accurately determine who has and has not reported for the referred service and to target follow-up visits. The system of summary reports provides real-time information from the field on outreach activities necessary to make programmatic decisions. The system will lead to increased HIV/AIDS testing and more efficient usage of outreach resources.
The team also developed pictorial forms for SMS that can be used by illiterate individuals. Instead of typing words, the users of the forms can select pictures and images that represent the information that is being reported.
The impact of the project can be measured using the following metrics:
- The NGO utilized FrontlineSMS to help facilitate HIV/AIDS prevention efforts for 500 registered sex workers.
- 17 outreach workers and field supervisors were trained to use a FrontlineSMS communications network.
- The NGO gained greater access to patient information by receiving forms daily instead of every two weeks.
- The NGO plans to use FrontlineSMS to communicate with over 1,800 HIV+ patients, including 520 on active ART therapy, with reminders about medication adherence, CD4 count testing, health check-ups, and support group meetings.
- The system functions to help improve such measures as: number of referrals made, number of people tested for HIV/AIDS, ART adherence percentage, CD4 count testing adherence percentage, and HIV+ support group attendance.
- The founding agency of the NGO plans to scale the software to organizations in 12 districts of Karnataka and 4 districts in Andhra Pradesh – potentially reaching tens of thousands of people.
- The team has also provided feedback and a description of the projects to the global online FrontlineSMS community.
Institutions Involved:
The Bhoruka Charitable Trust. BCT
The Karnataka Health Promotion Trust. KHPT
|
|
|
|
|
| TEAM MEMBERS |
|
|
 |
Tapasya Desai, USC School of Pharmacy, 2010
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Tapasya graduated from UCLA in 2005 with a B.S. in Microbiology and Genetics. Next year, she will be graduating from USC with a Pharm D. Her plans including pursuing a residency following that and hopes to work in Ambulatory Care, caring for patients in a one-on-one clinic setting, with physician protocols set to adjust and monitor patients' disease states.
Why were you interested in the USC Global Impact Program?
I have always wanted to broaden my mind and life experiences to working or volunteering abroad. With the USC Global Impact Program, not only do we get a chance to go abroad, but are able to implement our own social entrepreneurship ideas, ours focusing on health care and communication, that can be used to improve quality of life and be sustained long after we return home. This is what makes this program so unique and appealing to me. I hope to make the most of this experience and be able to learn and beneift as much from it as the people we are going there to help.
|
 |
Dan Greenberg, Marshall School of Business, BA 2009
Dan is a 2009 graduate from the USC Marshall Schoolo f Business, originally from San Antonio, TX. While at USC he majored in Business Administration with a minor in Urban Policy & Planning. Dan has interned for IBM in Shanghai, China and both Bank of America and Wells Fargo in Los Angeles. In the fall he will join Bain & Company as an Associate Consultant in its Los Angeles office. Dan founded and led the USC undergraduate chapter of Net Impact, a student organization that explores the relationship between business, society, and the environment. His eventual goal is to employ business as a tool to achieve social change by empowering others. Dan is particularly interested in primary education, microfinance, and the use of information technology- the focus of his Global Impact team’s project.
|
 |
Lena Enck, College of Letters, Arts, & Sciences, BS 2009
Lena Enck recently earned a B.A. in Biological Sciences from USC. A native New Yorker, she has enjoyed a bi-coastal lifestyle for the past four years and doesn’t look forward to having to choose one U.S. coast over the other for a home base! To avoid this choice she will travel to India this summer, where she will remain for the next year (if not longer). First, she will be implementing a mobile phone-based SMS health care communications network with the FrontlineSMS for Healthcare team in Hubli, India. After taking some time to travel India and its neighboring countries Lena will work with a non-profit organization, engaging in international development and exercising her social innovation skills - currently her focus is on global health. Lena loves to travel, connect with people, and discover people’s unique and fascinating personal stories. She is passionate about learning and is somewhat addicted to spontaneous, new experiences and adventures.
|
 |
Jonathan Goldford, Marshall School of Business, BA 2009
Jonathan Goldford just graduated from USC with a major in Business Administration and a minor in Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Volunteerism. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri with his five sisters and two brothers. After returning from India, Jonathan will be joining the Peace Corps somewhere in the South Pacific. |
|
|
|
|
|
"We are mere weeks away from the start of the trip that we Global Impacters have been eargerly anticipating since we applied for the program in January 2009."
Lena Enck - 2009 USC Global Impact Participant |
|
Additional Global Impact Projects
|
|
|
|
For more information about this program and how to get involved, please contact Polai Av (pav@usc.edu, 213.821.5000) |
|
|
ABOUT US
