Improving Maternal Health and Continuing Medical Education Using Solar and Low-Power Computer Technologies
Safe Mothers, Safe Babies seeks to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity through demand-driven, collaborative, sustainable, and scalable means.
About You
About You
First Name
Jacqueline
Last Name
Cutts
Twitter URL
Facebook URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Safe Mothers, Safe Babies
Organization Website
Organization Country
United States, UT, Provo, Utah County
Country where this project is creating social impact
Uganda, IGA, Iganga
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
Has the organization received awards or honors? Please tell us about them
We were honored to receive a $35,000 Rotary International grant, a $500 Do Something Seed Grant, and a $50,000 grant from the Segal Family Foundation which was co-awarded to SAFE and WE CARE Solar. We are currently shortlisted for a Rolex Award, and have had individual members receive various awards, grants, and recognition for their work with the organization.
References - Please provide two references with a two-sentence biography, email address, and phone number for each
1. Laura Stachel, MD/MPH, Co-founder of WE CARE Solar and Associate Director of West African Emergency Obstetric Research for the UC Berkeley Bixby Center for Population, Health, and Sustainability. Primary person with whom we have been working on the project from WE CARE Solar. Email: lestachel@gmail.com, Phone: 1 (510) 219-7044.
2. Tim Heaton, PhD. Professor of Sociology at Brigham Young University with years of international sociology, evaluation, and assessment research. Adviser to SAFE on all assessment-related activities. Email: tim_heaton@byu.edu, Phone: 1 (801) 422-3280.
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Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Scaling (the next step will be growing impact on a regional or even global scale)
How long have you been in operation?
Operating for 1‐5 years
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
Each year, more than 350,000 women and millions of babies die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth while millions more are injured. Many interventions have sought to improve these conditions by increasing access to health centers and life-saving medications. Yet these interventions often assume an absolutely vital support structure: the existence of trained health care providers, which frequently do not exist. This is not always because there aren’t enough providers, but because a breakdown in continuing medical education means that those providers that do exist don’t have the training they need to keep their skills up to par. What is needed is a concerted effort to strengthen the continuing medical education aspect of rural obstetric health care.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
Continuing medical education (CME) occurs in the form of hands-on training and the distribution of handouts. In Uganda, this training is conducted at district health offices (DHO) and hospitals. The primary obstacle is that many rural health center staff can't participate, as they are located so far from the training location that travel cost and lack of communication regarding when trainings will occur are prohibitive. Our solution builds on our successful installation of “Solar Suitcases” (innovative solar technology) in rural health centers by adding low-power computers. Solar Suitcases currently light deliveries, but in our solution will also power the computers that will house databases of CMEs conducted at the district level, including digitized versions of written materials along with video of any trainings provided by the DHO, filmed via a low-power flip video camera. These materials will then be available for any health provider at any clinic where the technology is installed.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
In order to use the technology most efficiently, our model includes: 1) Strengthening the demand for rural obstetric care by working with local change agents to improve maternal behavior in culturally sensitive ways, 2) Teaching the health center staff to use the technology in participatory trainings, and 3) Promoting health center and community ownership of the project.
First, Safe Mothers, Safe Babies (SAFE) looks for change agents who are already impacting local health. These individuals help SAFE engage communities in defining, prioritizing, and improving maternal and child health in locally sustainable ways, for example, working with civil society to write dramatizations and songs about reproductive health that they perform in their villages; each solution is designed and implemented by the community, with cursory support from SAFE.
A solar unit is simultaneously installed in the local health center, accompanied by training regarding optimal usage, care, and repair, and awareness campaigns using identified change agents. The solar unit lights deliveries, charges phones, and powers medical equipment, improving the quality of care. Our 2010 and 2011 pilot projects revealed over 100% increases in the number of health center deliveries, STD testing, and prenatal care attendance.
The final step is building a database of local, DHO-provided obstetric CME materials provided. This ensures adherence to local protocols and provides training in whatever the local language is. A low-power computer is then installed in the health center and linked to the central database.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
There are many organizations focused on improving the demand for, or quality of, health care services; there are also many for-profit and non-profit organizations working with solar, information and communication technologies. We sometimes compete with these players for funding. That being said, no other projects that we know of are pairing solar technology, low-power computers, and participatory, demand-generating outreaches to strengthen continuing medical education and the quality of rural obstetric care services. By working with diverse partners, SAFE is developing an innovative model to sustainably improve maternal and child health outcomes, which—given the model’s reliance on local change agents and materials—will be easily expandable throughout the entirety of the developing world.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Social Impact
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world.
During a 4-month stay in Uganda, I installed a very small solar unit on top of my house in a rural village. After I returned to the US, a Ugandan women’s group asked SAFE’s Program Manager if we would consider moving the solar unit to their local health center. "We are scared to deliver there at night. The nurses cannot see to help us, so we don't want to go there." It cost $30 to move the unit, but the effect it had on the utilization of services was staggering—in the 6 months following the installation, the health center saw more than 100% increases in the number of deliveries, prenatal care attendance, and HIV/STD testing! While evaluating that project, however, health care providers discussed their inability to get continuing medical education—essential to appropriately handling obstetric emergencies—because the health center was too far from the hospital where it was conducted. Using computers to share district training was the suggested solution.
Please describe the goal of your initiative; outline what you are trying to achieve
Will improving the number of skilled care providers matter if there isn’t enough electricity to conduct life-saving procedures? Can a health care provider render high-quality care if he or she only receives limited training once in his/her lifetime? If you had to deliver your baby in the dark with a less-than-competent care provider, would you? The goal of Light the Night is to reduce the number of mothers and newborns dying from preventable conditions by improving health-seeking behavior, health center infrastructure, and health care provider education. We seek to accomplish this by bridging a gap that has long-existed in other programs with similar objectives, by pairing the installation of innovative technology with change-making public outreach and engagement.
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
To evaluate our 2010 pilot, we compared pre and post intervention health center data, which revealed more than 100% increases in monthly clinic births, prenatal care attendance, and STD testing.
Afterwards, we were co-awarded a $50,000 grant with our partner, WE CARE Solar, to scale up with 20 Solar Suitcases in rural Ugandan health facilities in December 2011. Since then, we have received reports of 100-200% increases in the number of health center deliveries along with stories of lives saved as a direct result of the lights provided. For example, after resuscitating a premature newborn, midwife Esther Madudu reported: “Without the lights, we wouldn’t be seeing the AMBU bag to resuscitate correctly… or the name of the drug to be sure it was right… now there will be a lot of mothers saved, a lot of babies saved.”
The installation of low-power computers is a new addition to this successful model, but given its basis on direct requests, it is expected to be equally impactful.
What is your projected impact over the next five years?
While in Uganda in December, 2011, SAFE Founder and President, Jacqueline Cutts, was able to forge national partnerships with the Ugandan chapters of the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) and the White Ribbon Alliance, along with the Permanent Secretary for the Ugandan Ministry of Health, Dr. Asuman Lukwago. With these diverse partners, we are aiming to install Solar Suitcases and low-power computers in at least 100 health centers and hospitals all over Uganda over the next 2 years, through which we anticipate lighting over 65,000 births annually and providing continuing medical education services to at least 500 health care professionals every year.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Conduct extensive pre- and post- intervention evaluation of all intervention and control health centers.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Solidify quantitative and qualitative evaluation indicators with sociologist student interns and sociologist adviser.
Task 2
Seek IRB approval for study.
Task 3
Work with PEAT interns and sociologists to conduct assessments at 9 control and 9 intervention health facilities.
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Disseminate results of study to the public, and seek scale-up funding.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
Communicate results to all project partners.
Task 2
Write articles for publishing in peer-reviewed journals.
Task 3
Use results and work with project partners to pursue large grants for scaling up project.
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
Our primary partner is WE CARE Solar, manufacturer of the highly efficient, stand-alone “Solar Suitcase” that has been deployed in 17 countries, with larger initiatives in Nigeria, Liberia, and Haiti. By adding WE CARE Solar's solar expertise with SAFE's model of participatory engagement, we are maximizing the projects' overall effectiveness.
Additionally, we have recently formed partnerships with the head executives of the African Medical and Research Foundation, White Ribbon Alliance, and the Permanent Secretary for the Uganda Ministry of Health.
Are you currently targeting other specific populations, locations, or markets for your innovation? If so, where and why?
We currently have Solar Suitcases all over Uganda, although the bulk of the units are currently concentrates in the East. After we have demonstrated the impact of the low-power computers, we will be scaling up into additional locations, per the request of our partners. In particular, AMREF's "Stand Up for African Mothers" campaign is seeking to train midwifes all over Uganda (and eventually in other countries) via online e-curriculum. Once we demonstrate the impact of our low-power computer addition on medical education, we plan to use the model to start working on this e-training.
What type of operating environment and internal organizational factors make your innovation successful?
I work with 14 of the most passionate, dedicated women I know, each of whom has a different role within SAFE. In addition, my husband is our Technical Director and several advanced professionals advise our work (and the project specifically), including medical advisors and sociologists. Our in-country staff are local Ugandans who speak the language and understand local culture, and we are all dedicated to operating on a methodology of participatory development, in which we work with local change agents to ensure that all of our projects are wanted and adopted in management and funding by the communities in which they operate. Collectively, our team and approach ensure that all of our innovations are utilized to their fullest extent and managed as effectively as possible.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
I am happy to act as a pro-bono mentor to any individuals or organizations that need it. I am also happy to create diverse and dynamic partnerships, which I have already done for the project covered in this application using the associated Changeshop, "Light the Night," (partnership with Katherine Lucey of Solar Sister, which is covered in one of my impact reports).
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