Jacaranda use PROMPTS to help strengthen connections between patient and provider, driving tangible health system improvements across Kenya
Lilian has heard of too many preventable deaths amongst the mothers living nearby in Kibera, a vast informal settlement in the southwest of Nairobi. She herself had struggled to access timely, quality care when it was time to deliver her third child. Already in labor, she reached the facility only to find a line of women in similar stages of labor, all who had been there for over six hours. Eventually, she was forced to leave, thankfully delivering a healthy baby girl at the last minute in a nearby health center.
Situations like this in Kenya are not isolated, where poor quality care continues to drive more than half of the country’s maternal deaths. Yet despite this, few formal channels exist for women to share their experiences at facilities. When Lilian signed up for PROMPTS, Jacaranda’s digital health tool, she quickly found it not only a lifeline for advice and information, but a channel through which she could report on her experiences of care in facilities - from its clinical quality to whether she was treated with respect.
The anonymity the SMS-based platform offers not only empowers women like Lilian to have a voice in the health system, but also doubles as a powerful accountability mechanism for those providing or making decisions on their care. Their feedback is routinely shared with providers and health system managers, which helps pinpoint barriers to the provision of timely, quality, and respectful care, but also ensure that there are sufficient resources - money, equipment, infrastructure - to achieve and sustain it. For instance, the installation of curtains in the labor wards of a Kiambu hospital stemmed from repeated requests from PROMPTS mothers for better privacy
She is now one of ~400,000 women who have shared feedback, which is helping to strengthen connections between patient and provider. ‘On SMS, I can talk about my experiences confidentially and explain very clearly how I was treated.’ shares Lilian. ‘I give my feedback so women like those I saw in the line have a better chance of giving birth safely.’