A mobile app developed by IntraHealth International is now helping more frontline health workers in India better care for women and newborns, even in the most remote settings. Thanks to a three-year grant from the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, mSakhi will now be available in Uttarakhand, India.

India has over 1 billion mobile phone subscribers. It has also worked hard to reduce what was once among the highest maternal death rates in the world. So when India’s government began looking for ways to harness mobile technology to improve health care in the country, IntraHealth responded with mSakhi.

mSakhi’s audio and video content guides health workers through a variety of crucial tasks, from counseling expectant mothers to identifying sick newborns. And its client-management tools help health workers keep track of and report client data easily.

Previously, mSakhi was available only in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where it helped community health workers called ASHAs (or accredited social health activists) to update their skills, improve their interactions with clients, and stay in touch with their supervisors and mentors. Since 2006, the government of India has trained over 900,000 ASHAs to reach the country’s most impoverished and remote communities. But many ASHAs lack literacy skills, which can make it difficult to update their knowledge.

The highly visual and auditory mSakhi provides a powerful solution. In fact, the Digital Empowerment Foundation awarded mSakhi an mBillionth Award for outstanding mobile content in 2015. And while the app was originally designed for ASHAs, it has since been expanded for auxiliary nurse midwives and other frontline health workers. 

Now together with our local partner, the Rural Development Institute, IntraHealth is working to further expand access to mSakhi and improve health services for women and children in Uttarakhand. This new work will provide much-needed evidence and support to the government of Uttarakhand as it adopts mHealth tools for frontline health workers.

IntraHealth originally developed mSakhi under the Manthan Project, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Other funders associated with IntraHealth’s mSakhi work include the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation and the Wireless Reach program of QualComm.