MobileActive.org

The overall goal of the PDAs for Malaria Monitoring in Maputo and Gaza Provinces, Centre was to improve the management of public health dat using handheld computers in order to provide the malaria program the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI) with appropriate assessment tools and the ability to make informed decisions.

The specific objectives of the project that would contribute to the achievement of the overall goal were

1. to enable personnel from District level of the health service to collect data and provide it to the Provincial level in a timely fashion;
2. to develop training courses and appropriate collection tools designed for use with handheld computers; and
3. to evaluate the utility of handheld computers for the malaria control program to provide data rapidly and accurately to allow better targeting of interventions and resources.

AED-SATELLIFE developed and successfully deployed electronic data collection tools which catalog drug and rapid diagnostic test stocks; spray operators daily work performance; weekly health facility data; localization of individual households with GPS, including demographic data on household members, house structure and divisions; and health facility surveys linked to GPS positioning. Training materials were developed inPortuguese.

Independent evaluation confirmed that the electronic data collection/transmission tools proved to be a useful, adoptable, and result in higher user satisfaction compared to paper based approaches. Some challenges need to be addressed before there can be widespread adoption of the technology, such as limited infrastructure, especially cellular coverage.