Building a national model for knowledge exchange in Malawi: findings from a health information needs assessment.

Getting the right information into the right hands at the right time is a challenge for many health systems in developing countries. Health workers need access to reliable and up-to-date health information in order to support their clients. This health information needs assessment, conducted in the capital city and 3 districts of Malawi from July 2009 to September 2009, aimed to determine access to, and need for, health information in HIV/AIDS and family planning/reproductive health at all levels of the health system. Using qualitative research methods, the study showed the need to (a) build the capacity of government technical working groups to collect and store information and to promote information exchange at all levels of the health system; (b) improve information synthesis and packaging, particularly for users at peripheral levels; (c) strengthen the district level to serve as an information hub for district- and community-level providers; and (d) explore mobile technologies to increase provider access to knowledge and information.

Reaching remote health workers in Malawi: baseline assessment of a pilot mHealth intervention.

mHealth has great potential to change the landscape of health service delivery in less developed countries--expanding the reach of health information to frontline health workers in remote areas. Formative, process, and summative evaluation each play an important role in mHealth interventions. K4Health conducted a Health Information Needs Assessment in Malawi from July to September 2009 (formative evaluation) that found widespread use of cell phones among health workers offering new opportunities for knowledge exchange, especially in areas where access to health information is limited. K4Health subsequently designed an 18-month demonstration project (January 2010 to June 2011) to improve the exchange and use of family planning/reproductive health and HIV/AIDS knowledge among health workers, which included the introduction of a short message service (SMS) network. K4Health conducted a pretest of the mHealth intervention from June to October 2010. A baseline assessment was carried out in November 2010 before expanding the SMS network and included use of qualitative and quantitative measures and comparison groups (summative evaluation). Routinely collected statistics also guide the program (process evaluation). This article describes the approach and main findings of the SMS baseline study and contributes to a growing body of evidence measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of mHealth programs using a strong evaluation design.