Malaria Consortium inSCALE mobile app (CommCare)

As part of the inSCALE project, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Malaria Consortium and Dimagi have developed the inSCALE CommCare application to be used by community health workers (CHWs) and their supervisors in Mozambique to improve their motivation, performance and retention, and ultimately increase appropriate treatment of sick children.

This demonstration aims to show how the App is used by CHWs to, diagnose and treat children and provide advice to caregivers caregivers; improving their relationships, confidence and performance. The video walks through the case of Maria Alberto, a child with pneumonia to show how a CHW would perform a consultation.

The software has been tailor made for the CHWs (based on existing job aids) and walks them through the consultation steps to make sure that no symptom or sign is missed, while providing treatment guidance when all steps are complete.

Images and audio have been included in the software to refresh the skills in illness identification and treatment. The app is also being used to identify danger signs in newborns and pregnant women as well as guiding malaria treatment in adults. In addition, a respiratory timer to diagnose symptoms of pneumonia has been built in to the software to facilitate one of the most commonly challenging aspects of their work.

Health facility and district level CHW supervisors receive weekly and monthly email reports with aggregated data, CHW performance and actionable recommendations on areas needing supervision or follow-up. In addition, the supervisor App allows them to more effectively and efficiently track and address issues around CHW performance using specially developed competency checklists.

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