AFYABOX: CONNECTING TANZANIANS TO HEALTH SERVICES

Improve Access to Health Services in the Moshi Municipal District by Integrating a User Friendly Mobile Application with the Health Facility Registry Database
Tanzania

Background

As in many other developing countries, in Tanzania, information about health facilities – their locations and the services they offer – is either not available or hard to access by the general public. As a result, many people rely on past experience, word of mouth, or signboards outside the health facility to access such information. This restricts access to healthcare, especially when the need for less common or specialized services arises.

In 2016, the Government of Tanzania, in collaboration with PEPFAR, published a Health Facility Registry (HFR), an online tool to provide public access to a database of health facilities – including their location and services offered – in Mainland Tanzania.

Signboards indicating location of the Health Facility

Problem

Despite the importance of the HFR, the system operates in English, a language spoken by only one quarter of the Tanzanian population. Moreover, the information can only be accessed online, and the majority of Tanzanians, especially those living in rural areas, lack the hardware, connectivity, and experience necessary to access it. As a result, despite the existence of the HFR, many Tanzanians continue to rely on experience or word of mouth in locating healthcare.

Solution

As a team of innovators who want to help our community, we want to use mobile technology to make HFR data available to anyone who has a mobile phone. By developing a mobile-based, user-friendly solution, any of the 40+ million Tanzanians with a mobile phone subscription – 80% of the population – will be able to access health facility information. Branded afyaBox (“afya” means “good health” in Swahili, the solution will provide equitable access to all mobile users, in English and Swahili.

Process

Users will be able to access health facility information by querying afyaBox though an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code. Sending a USSD request is as simple as making a phone call or sending a text message. The user dials the USSD code (e.g. *384*150#) and a series of prompts guide him/her through a menu to retrieve the desired information. To eliminate the language barrier, the afyaBox interface and database contents are available in both English and Swahili, and the simplicity of the menu will allow even those with low literacy to access the system. In addition to searching for health facilities by location, users will be able to search for the specific services they need or for facilities accepting health insurance.

The afyaBox team is piloting its project in the Moshi Municipal Council, where the system will be ready for launch as soon as the team acquires a USSD code from the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA). Having already applied for the code, the team is preparing to advertise the service to a wide range of users through mass media campaigns, posters, and social media.

Expected Impacts

Now that afyaBox has been deployed as an online application, it will improve the ability of Tanzanians in the Moshi Municipal Council to access to health services. More people will be able to access information from the HRF, allowing them to make informed decisions about where to seek medical care, including locating nearby facilities, insurance-accepting facilities, and specialty health services nearby.

Proposed Scale-Up

The project scale-up is targeted towards community members seeking health services, health service providers, and the Ministry of Health. By expanding the geographic coverage of afyaBox to include the regions of Arusha and Kilimanjaro and through the addition of features such as appointment scheduling, transportation arrangement, and provision of feedback, afyaBox will improve health service access for Tanzanians.

Outcomes and Impacts

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In conjunction with airing the first three shorts, Ubongo will conduct baseline and end line surveys of the audience and comparison groups to evaluate the effects of accessing this content on girls’ financial knowledge. In addition to developing financial literacy in the target audience, this data-driven approach will highlight the importance of data in decision-making among the audience and will support the development of increased data literacy.

Key Collaborators