1
|
Finette BA, McLaughlin M, Scarpino SV, Canning J, Grunauer M, Teran E, Bahamonde M, Quizhpe E, Shah R, Swedberg E, Rahman KA, Khondker H, Chakma I, Muhoza D, Seck A, Kabore A, Nibitanga S, Heath B. Development and Initial Validation of a Frontline Health Worker mHealth Assessment Platform (MEDSINC ®) for Children 2-60 Months of Age. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2020; 100:1556-1565. [PMID: 30994099 PMCID: PMC6553915 DOI: 10.4269/ajtmh.18-0869] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Approximately 3 million children younger than 5 years living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) die each year from treatable clinical conditions such as pneumonia, dehydration secondary to diarrhea, and malaria. A majority of these deaths could be prevented with early clinical assessments and appropriate therapeutic intervention. In this study, we describe the development and initial validation testing of a mobile health (mHealth) platform, MEDSINC®, designed for frontline health workers (FLWs) to perform clinical risk assessments of children aged 2–60 months. MEDSINC is a web browser–based clinical severity assessment, triage, treatment, and follow-up recommendation platform developed with physician-based Bayesian pattern recognition logic. Initial validation, usability, and acceptability testing were performed on 861 children aged between 2 and 60 months by 49 FLWs in Burkina Faso, Ecuador, and Bangladesh. MEDSINC-based clinical assessments by FLWs were independently and blindly correlated with clinical assessments by 22 local health-care professionals (LHPs). Results demonstrate that clinical assessments by FLWs using MEDSINC had a specificity correlation between 84% and 99% to LHPs, except for two outlier assessments (63% and 75%) at one study site, in which local survey prevalence data indicated that MEDSINC outperformed LHPs. In addition, MEDSINC triage recommendation distributions were highly correlated with those of LHPs, whereas usability and feasibility responses from LHP/FLW were collectively positive for ease of use, learning, and job performance. These results indicate that the MEDSINC platform could significantly increase pediatric health-care capacity in LMICs by improving FLWs’ ability to accurately assess health status and triage of children, facilitating early life-saving therapeutic interventions.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Barry A Finette
- THINKMD, Inc., Burlington, Vermont.,University of Vermont Robert Larner College of Medicine, Vermont Children's Hospital, Burlington, Vermont
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Edy Quizhpe
- University of San Francisco de Quito- Ecuador Ministry of Health-Affiliate, Quito, Ecuador
| | - Rashed Shah
- Save the Children - US, Fairfield, Connecticut
| | | | | | | | - Ituki Chakma
- Save the Children - International Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh
| | | | - Awa Seck
- UNICEF-Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
| | | | | | - Barry Heath
- THINKMD, Inc., Burlington, Vermont.,University of Vermont Robert Larner College of Medicine, Vermont Children's Hospital, Burlington, Vermont
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Finette BA, McLaughlin M, Scarpino SV, Canning J, Grunauer M, Teran E, Bahamonde M, Quizhpe E, Shah R, Swedberg E, Rahman KA, Khondker H, Chakma I, Muhoza D, Seck A, Kabore A, Nibitanga S, Heath B. Authors' Response. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2019; 101:949-950. [PMID: 32519660 PMCID: PMC6779201 DOI: 10.4269/ajtmh.19-0411b] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Barry A Finette
- University of Vermont Robert Larner College of Medicine and University of Vermont Children's HospitalBurlington, VermontTHINKMD, Inc.Burlington, Vermont
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Edy Quizhpe
- University of San Francisco de Quito-Ecuador Ministry of Health-AffiliateQuito, Ecuador
| | | | | | | | | | - Ituki Chakma
- Save the Children-International BangladeshDhaka, Bangladesh
| | | | - Awa Seck
- UNICEF-Burkina FasoOuagadougou, Burkina Faso
| | | | | | - Barry Heath
- University of Vermont Robert Larner College of Medicine and University of Vermont Children's HospitalBurlington, VermontTHINKMD, Inc.Burlington, Vermont
| |
Collapse
|