Hello all,
I am Dr Jackson Ilangali from Tanzania.
I want to share with you what my team did in Tanzania to increase access to health facilities’ Information in Tanzania recently.
In our country (Tanzania), there is an online health facilities registry Website, where by all health facilities’ information is available. The registry Web is government owned. But, it has its limitations such as its not updated regularly, and also it’s in English Language, which is not understood by the majority of citizens, plus the fact that you need an internet connection to access it; which could be difficult to most citizens bearing in mind internet connectivity infrastructures bottlenecks in our country.
So, I teamed up with a software developer and came up with an idea of making this facilities’ registry more accessible to more citizens.The aim is to make such information as the name of the facility,ownership,location,services offered and the costs,health insurance schemes accepted and a brief description of the facility more accessible to the citizens.
And in Dec 2016, we received some funding from Data For Local impact Challenge, which enabled us to implement the idea in two districts (Kyela district and Mbeya City district).
Our idea was making this information more available to citizens using SMS Application, Android Application and also web application. We have just launched an SMS Application, and is now officially in use in the two districts. So, citizens in the two districts can now just send an SMS to a number (at no additional cost), detailing the service they are in need of and the district they are in, and then they will get a response detailing the facilities where they will get this service, the cost at each facility, the health insurance scheme accepted at each facility, and the working days/hours for the service in each facility offering the service.
The next milestone is also launching an android application with the same functionalities.
We are also looking for more support and/or funds so that to scale up this innovation in more districts win our country, and even beyond our country!!
I thought that this is interesting to share this with you for more connections, and networking, collaborations and even for more opportunities. You are all welcome for questions if any.
Thank you all!!
Regards,
Dr. Jackson Ilangali,
Mob:+255754327452