1. Peter Barron National Department of Health, South Africa

2. MomConnect Aims: Responding to sub-optimal MCH indicators
Strengthen information systems: Introducing a mechanism for registering electronically pregnancies in public health system using unique ID number.
Strengthen demand side of health system: Send targeted health promotion messages to pregnant women to improve their health and infants
To provide pregnant women with an interactive mechanism to feedback: ask questions; rate service; complain/compliment
To empower and support nurses with regular content; encourage study and peer support groups; provide feedback mechanism for nurses to make suggestions (NurseConnect)
Each of these uses mHealth in a different way

3. Innovation Political leadership and multi-sector partnerships
Public sector pregnant women get registered free on DOH database
Receive messaging linked to stage of pregnancy and age of baby up to 1 year
Women interact with helpdesk; get more information & provide feedback about quality of care
Nurses (NurseConnect) also register and get suitable information to support them

5. Some Achievements After 27 months of operation:
Over 1 million pregnant women linked to SMS messaging
They ask 1000 questions a day - helpdesk
Nearly 7 times as many compliments (7064) as complaints received (1079)
NurseConnect introduced in May 2016; nurses connected
Specific eMTCT additional messaging for HIV positive women
Some impact on the supply side of health system

7. Outcomes: Telephonic Survey with Mothers
The survey took place in July 2015
Of nearly 10,000 women who were surveyed 21,6% responded
Over 98% (1962) of these users felt that MomConnect messages had helped them
Over 80% (1611) had shared the messages with friends or their partners
Over 80% (1606) reported that the messages helped them to remember their clinic visits
Over 75% (1531) of users reported that the messages had helped them feel more prepared for childbirth and delivery.
Over 70% (1414) actually wanted more messages than the 100 plus messages they already receive during pregnancy /first year of child's life​.
This survey was done to supplement the M&E component

8. Impact
Overall M&E report being finalised: Preliminary findings show that pregnant women do have increased knowledge and attitudes towards health

9. Challenges Behaviour change difficult
Some difficulties with registration (USSD)
Volume of enquiries for helpdesk
Cost of SMS/financial sustainability
Babies reaching 1 year
System capacity to innovate
Integration (multiple mHealth projects and apps continuously popping up)

10. Response to Challenges
Moving to data – WhatsApp
NurseConnect extending to all nurses
Upgrade of helpdesk (and integration of other helpdesks in Health Department)
Extension of MomConnect
Getting mHealth into mainstream health conversation
More precise monitoring (behaviour change experimentation)

11. Thank you
Siyabonga