The Kenya electronic Community Health information System and the Jamii ni Afya app are government led digital platforms that have been deployed in Kenya and Zanzibar respectively to support CHWs and their supervisors to deliver high quality integrated community health services. The digitization of community health services has helped to standardise care, improve access to care for households and provided the Ministries of Health with data to support evidence based decision making.
With the emergence of AI, there is a unique opportunity to further elevate these digital health platforms into intelligent health system enablers. To bring this vision to life, the Dalberg Data Insights team is working in collaboration with Amref Health Africa, MOH Kenya, D-tree and MOH Zanzibar to design, build, test and deploy AI enabled solutions on existing digital platforms to help strengthen health service delivery.
To ensure that the AI solutions meaningful enhance community health systems, the teams adopted an iterative human centered design approach to better understand users’ experiences with digital tools in their daily work. Mixed user research methods were used to gather research insights that helped to identify possible AI interventions. A structured prioritisation framework was then applied to assess each AI use case based on its feasibility and potential value addition to the community health system.
Through this process the teams prioritized and deployed an AI powered Reporting Assistant that has been rolled out in Machakos County (in Kenya) to guide Community Health Assistants (CHAs). The solution:
- Flags potential data inconsistencies.
- Generates simple community level snap shots of emerging health trends.
- Allows CHAs to interact with AI assistants through WhatsApp.
In Zanzibar, an AI solution has been developed to provide AI powered insights to support CHV led community group sessions.
These AI solutions have been deployed outside the eCHIS and Jamii ni Afya platforms as a proof of concept, allowing teams to test, refine and validate the impact before eventual integration into the existing digital health infrastructure.
You can watch the recording of the presentation and demo of the AI solution here.
Thank you Aika, Joy and Medrine for the insightful session and for advancing innovation in community health systems.