To improve the quality of care provided by CHWs, the Kenyan government launched an upgraded version of the electronic Community Health Information System (eCHIS)—a comprehensive digital health platform encompassing all healthcare levels. The government-led eCHIS app will ultimately be deployed to all CHWs nationally.

It is modeled after Living Goods’ Smart Health App and hosted on the Medic-stewarded Community Health Toolkit. Living Goods worked closely with the government during the conceptualization, development, and piloting of the system. In 2021, we worked with the Kisumu County Government to pilot the eCHIS tool, learning valuable lessons and paving the way for national rollout.

Before the introduction of eCHIS, the reliance on manual paper-based data systems resulted in poor data quality, limited accountability, misuse of health data, high healthcare delivery costs, and inefficient data use for decision-making. eCHIS will collect accurate household data and support CHWs to provide high-quality, timely, and equitable care, as well as ease monitoring and supervision. eCHIS is not just a data collection tool but an enabler to deliver greater performance and health outcomes.

Since Living Goods started working in Kenya in 2015, we’ve demonstrated the potential of digitalizing and professionalizing CHWs. We today partner with county governments to support over 4,500 CHWs and strengthen the systems in which they work. We’re committed to building on this momentum, providing implementation support in counties with co-financing agreements, and expanding our reach to areas in greatest need.

We’ll further work with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and Medic to monitor and mitigate technology related challenges that may arise owing to the rapid scaling of eCHIS and will keep advocating for continued investments in community health.

In this short documentary below, see how Living Goods in partnership with the county government of Kisumu, Kenya are saving lives and building strong community health systems. Our documentary was one of the 19 solutions-focused documentary films as part of the inaugural year of the Solutions Storytelling Project, generously supported by the Skoll Foundation.