Together with the MOH and the Kisumu County Government, we piloted the country’s first electronic community health information system (eCHIS). The goal of the landmark eCHIS is to improve service delivery through enhanced training and data quality and usage for decision making, and ultimately to advance Universal Health Coverage for all Kenyans.

Living Goods was the MOH’s lead technical partner in bringing this system to life as the eCHIS tool was based on our SmartHealth app, built on Medic’s Community Health Toolkit (CHT) platform.

After the successful pilot, the eCHIS was approved for scale to all 95,000 CHWs across the country. Both the CHWs and supervisors in Kisumu are now actively using digital tools to deliver health services, with dashboard data informing monthly performance reviews and program planning. When they embarked on the digitization journey, the county did not have enough paper-based tools for their nearly 3,000 CHWs and 119 community health assistants (supervisors) to use for reporting. In contrast, the eCHIS is a comprehensive decision-support tool that enables consistent quality of care for patients and supports data collection and reporting in near real time.

This, in turn, enables effective performance management of CHWs, commodity management and disease surveillance.

“I have been a CHW for 20 years. The introduction of eCHIS has made our work easier. The app guides and reminds me of what to do. So, I cannot forget anything. For example, I cannot forget to do a follow-up visit to a client,” says Jael Atieno, a CHW in Kabodho west in Nyakach sub-county.

Supervisors’ work has also been eased as they are able to view what CHWs are doing and give tailored support, even remotely. We are excited about the scaling of eCHIS as it could significantly improve the quality of care for Kenyans and provide a blueprint for other counties and countries that want to digitize.

“I believe that we are laying a strong foundation. In the years to come, this investment in community and primary health will have long-lasting results,” says Maureen Opiyo, Kisumu County’s Community Health Services Coordinator.