Design for health : co-designing health information services in the Afrikan context

Abstract

Maternal and Child Health (MCH) plays a vital role in the socio-economic development of countries and in particular, sub-Saharan Afrika. Children are the future of a nation; therefore, their health and wellbeing becomes critical to national development. Health information and education have been identified as possible ways of promoting preventive care, particularly amongst mothers with infant children in sub-Saharan Afrika. The provision of quality healthcare services is of great importance in any given community. Thus, health education needs to be extended to mothers in underserved communities in Afrikan sub-regions. This study was predominantly conducted in the Grabouw community in the Western Cape Province of South Africa and partially in the Kumasi-Asante region of Ghana as a replication case. This study aims to contribute to the improvement of healthcare services in underserved communities and accelerate South Africa’s progress towards meeting global health-related targets such as the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal three (UN SDG 3) by 2030. Service design and sensemaking theories have been explored to gain insights and to search for possible solutions within the problem space in Grabouw. Co-design activities have been conducted with the participating health intermediaries such as caregivers, midwives and patients (women), which have resulted in prototyping a technology-enabled health information system. The system, which is a multimodal health information system, is envisioned to facilitate the transmission of health information in underserved communities. It is also designed to facilitate interaction between health intermediaries (caregivers) and patients (mothers) when implemented in the future. Projections from the study include the proposed health information system, which has multimodal functions, will equip caregivers, and enable them to promote health literacy among women in the Grabouw area. Mothers will be empowered to make informed decisions for themselves and their children to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality in the context of Grabouw in the Western Cape, South Africa. Future work is suggested to extend health information services to mothers in other underserved communities towards fostering a healthy society. A healthy society will accelerate the attainment of health-related UN SDGs in South Africa, Ghana and other countries in sub-Saharan Afrika.