The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has partnered with leading telecommunications provider Globe Telecom in delivering an integrated mobile and desktop social system that can be used to report real-time data on maternal and child health for improved public health care, particularly in far-flung areas.
“Timely and accurate generation of health data is critical to good decision-making and provides concrete evidence to support actions in running health programs of the local government units. Thus, we at Globe are doing our best to help bridge disparities in access to health care by providing the necessary information and communications technology tools to make all this possible,” said Rob I. Nazal, Head of Globe Corporate Social Responsibility.
Called rChits (Real-time Community Health Information Tracking System), the project was developed and tested by the University of the Philippines – Manila for the National Telehealth Center (NTHC). It is a five-month project funded by UNICEF with Globe providing ICT support.
rChits falls under the iAccess pillar of Globe Bridging Communities, the CSR arm of Globe. It enables key agencies to gain state of the art ICT to increase effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian and welfare services and gives opportunities for greater grassroots access to ICT solutions through research and development.
For the pilot run, Globe and UNICEF identified three disadvantaged areas in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, namely: Sto. Domingo, Albay; Gamay, Northern Samar; and G’lan, Sarangani.
Globe equipped the three municipalities with ICT tools such as mobile phones and special Globe BridgeCom SIM cards which give rCHITS program leaders access to more affordable mobile services when gathering information on maternal and child health in rural areas.
The ongoing pilot testing showed that mobile phones, the Internet, and free and open source software are effective not only in real-time data reporting of maternal and child health but also in monitoring compliance with the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and in alerting local chief executives about emergencies and disasters in their areas.
At the very basic level, rChits has reduced inefficiencies of the old paper-based system like delayed reporting to decision-makers as well as prolonged waiting time because of hard-to-locate, if not missing records.
Despite the widespread use of ICT in the metropolis, it is yet to be fully utilized in data gathering both in the national and local government levels. This often results in overlapping or duplication of data, unnecessary spending of resources, and deprivation of national and local chief executives of information critical to decision making.
The prevailing information systems on the ground are still hinged on manual and paper-based mechanisms since the use of electronic platforms has yet to be well maximized due to lack of ICT infrastructure and human resource in many communities.
