Bogalech serves her community with mobile health!
Bogalech has served the Tembaro District as a healthcare worker for the last 16 years. She, along with one other healthcare worker, provides frontline medical care for a community of more than 7,000 people.
The Ethiopian government is committed to digitalizing community health care. The benefits include reducing the administrative workload of busy healthcare workers and providing them the tools to accurately diagnose and treat sick patients. However, in order to access the benefits, healthcare workers like Bogalech need mobile phones and training to use the system.
WEEMA has provided phones and initial training for nearly 250 health workers like Bogalech so they can do their job more efficiently and provide better care. These health workers have started registering all community members in the new system so they can start using the digital tool for service delivery. Bogalech participated in WEEMA’s training and had the following to say:
“The previous paper-based system we worked with had many challenges. Since everything was recorded into paper based large folders, it wasn’t feasible to carry it when conducting home visits in the community even if we wanted to collect new data. Data accessibility was also an issue since the system didn’t have any referral links.”
Bogalech and her fellow healthcare worker in training with WEEMA staff!
Without up to date information in her paper system, Bogalech struggled to stay on top of her responsibilities, such as tracking which families needed health services for pregnant women and newborns. She also struggled to report accurate information to her supervisor on the health of her community. This made it nearly impossible to identify trends and consolidate data to help understand the overall health needs of the community.
After receiving the training, Bogalech and her fellow health worker have finished registering nearly 7,000 people in their area to the electronic system. They are excited for the next WEEMA training that will focus on using the digital system for patient diagnosis and treatment.
When you invest in our healthcare programs, WEEMA equips frontline health workers with mobile digital tools to help them provide more effective healthcare.
It costs approximately $100 to train one Healthcare worker on the digital system and $400 to purchase a mobile phone. Please consider donating to support this powerful program.