Concurrent Sessions
mHealth and Manifestos (as in, Checklist Manifestos): Mobile technology for community health
CORE Group mHealth Interest Group and Adam Slote, Senior Health Advisor, USAID
Professionally, many of us are intimidated by and/or dubious about the prospect of incorporating mobile phone technology into our community health programming. Yet we all have cell phones in our pockets. Why the disconnect? This interactive session will meld feedback from the Working Groups with the wisdom of the participants while tapping into the ìchecklist manifestoî craze. Sound zany? A crack team of mhealth advocates and experts will make sure no one gets hurt, and even distribute prizes.
Boosting Nutrition through Integrated Programming
Judiann McNulty (Independent), Moderator ; Bethann Witcher Cottrell, Director, Child Health and Nutrition, CARE US ; Heather Danton, Senior Director, Livelihoods Program Integration, Save the Children ; Paige Harrigan, Advisor, Health and Nutrition, Save the Children
The session provided examples of proven program models and practices from a range of program settings that have demonstrated success in improving nutrition. By the end of the session, participants were able to: learn how integrated approaches led to documented reduction of malnutrition in a variety of contexts.
SHOUHARDO: Making a Difference with Integrated Programming Bethann Witcher Cottrell, Director, Child Health and Nutrition, CARE USA
CARE Bangladeshís SHOUHARDO (Strengthening Household Abilities for Responding to Development Opportunities) Program aimed to "Sustainably reduce chronic and transitory food insecurity of 400,000 households in 18 districts of Bangladesh by 2009". The SHOUHARDO Program, a Title II Development Assistance Program (DAP), funded through Food for Peace (FFP) and the Government of Bangladesh will close in May 2010. SHOUHARDO addressed not only the availability, access and utilization issues that lead to food insecurity, but also the underlying issues that contributed to vulnerabilities such as a lack of participation, social injustice, and discrimination that prevent people from realizing their full potential in leading healthy and productive lives.
Results from the final evaluation that examined the relationships between participation in SHOUHARDO interventions and achievement of the project outcome indicators were presented. With respect to children's nutritional status, one of the most significant outcomes is the clear evidence that project interventions have contributed toward the strong reductions in stunting and underweight that have taken place over the life of the SHOUHARDO project.
SHOUHARDO CARE Bangladesh Evaluation FY2009
Reducing Malnutrition through Multi-sectoral Programming Heather Danton, Senior Director, Livelihoods Program Integration, Save the Children ; Paige Harrigan, Advisor, Health and Nutrition, Save the Children
Save the Children presenters drew from several program experiences and shared common lessons learned and outstanding gaps.
Boosting Nutrition Impact via Integrated Program Strategies
In Sync with Zinc Vicki MacDonald, Zinc Technical Advisor, POUZN Project, Abt Associates ; Cecilia Kwak, Child Health Program Manager, POUZN Project, Population Services International
POUZN Project Staff discussed the role of zinc in the treatment of childhood diarrheas, experience to date in implementing zinc treatment programs in a variety of country settings, introduced and discussed a number of tools created to collect both quantitative and qualitative data on zinc use and provider/caregiver/community agent behaviors, and presented results and lessons learned from both research data and program monitoring.
Community Health Systems: What are they really? Emily deRiel, Communications and Policy Manager, Health Alliance International ; Henry Perry, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health ; Andrea Wilson, Program Officer, Aga Khan Foundation
First came "health system strengthening." Now comes "community health systems strengthening." Is it simply an extrapolation of the "health system strengthening" ideas and methodologies? That was a trick question. It's not. But what is it? Interested parties are trying to work that out, and this session offered participants a chance to find out what they are thinking and contribute to the process.
Working with the “institutional” health system: HAI’s model of health systems strengthening
Plenary
Hype or Help? Is community health ready for mHealth? (mHealth = mobile technology for health) Kerry McNamara, Independent Consultant, Scholar in Residence at the School of Communication at American University, Moderator
This session brought together key mhealth practitioners and other interested stakeholders to exchange implementation experiences in Community Health-related work. The session worked to identify essential factors that contribute to successful implementation of community-based mhealth initiatives. To strengthen the recommendations of ìbest practices, failures and troubleshooting techniques were also be discussed. After an introduction from Kerry that included a summary from the morningís concurrent session on mhealth, there were three presentations followed by interactive dialogue.
From Outreach Clinics to Households: How mHealth is helping to advance community health Patricia N. Mechael, Director of Strategic Application of Mobile Technology for Public Health and Development Center for Global Health and Economic Development. Earth Institute, Columbia University
As a world leader in the field of mHealth, Dr. Mecheal addressed issues of mobile adoption, design from the user perspective, women and mobiles, how Millennium Villages have harnessed mobiles to improve health outcomes, and what she sees as the future of mobile health.
YouTube Video: Millennium Promise (link pending)
Text Message Networks Josh Nesbit, Executive Director, FrontlineSMS:Medic
Josh showed participants how mhealth needn't be overly complicated, expensive or daunting, through examples of how his organization has applied its products and ideas to improve health in Malawi, sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti.
Initiating mHealth into a CSHGP in Afghanistan Carolyn C. Kruger, Senior Technical Specialist, International Programs Group, World Vision US ; Dennis Cherian, Director of Operations, Health and Hope, Resource Development and Management, International Programs Group, World Vision US ; Neal Lesh, Chief Technology Officer, D-Tree International
CommCare is a mobile-phone based application that enables community health workers to provide better, more efficient care while also enabling better supervision and coordination of community health programs. Neal Lesh will introduce CommCare and its adaptations. The World Vision team presented a new module of CommCare being introduced into World Visionís Afghanistan CSHGP as part of an Innovations Information Technology Operations Research study.
CommCare for WV BHAMC Child Survival Project
Golden Nuggets of the week (CORE Group's version of Pearls of Wisdom) and Closing Remarks Tom Davis, Chair, CORE Group Board of Directors, Director of Health Programs, Food for the Hungry
Golden Nuggets - Closing Remarks
Roundtable: SHOUT (Sustained Health Outcomes) James Ricca, Senior Sustainability & Tuberculosis Control Advisor, NGO/PVO Support Team, Maternal Child Health Integrated Project, ICF/Macro International
For participants who've been involved in using the Sustainability Framework (SF) in projects and want to share experiences. The presenters looked to have both old hands and new faces at the SHOUT (Sustained Health Outcomes) Sustainability Roundtable and talked about the Sustainability Page on the new MCHIP website, the more general ICF Macro CEDARS (Center for Sustainable Health and Development) website, some developments on sustainability outside of CSHGP, and the Sustainability Framework manual (Taking the Long View) and granteesí experience with it.
Roundtable: Metrics and Evaluation of mHealth Activities: Teasing out the attribution of mobile technologies to the achievement of health outcomes Patricia Mechael, Director of Strategic Application of Mobile Technology for Public Health and Development, Center for Global Health and Economic Development, Earth Institute, Columbia University
In this session, key mhealth practitioners and other public health practitioners, specifically evaluation experts, came together to identify the contributions that mhealth has made towards improving health outcomes. Participants evaluated and expanded upon the metrics and evaluation practices and indicators from an mhealth M&E survey conducted in mid-April by the WHO and the Earth Institute, Columbia University. The outputs of this session will help shape a standardized framework for analysis and evaluation of mhealth initiatives and promote ìbest practices for mhealth programs.