A configurable mobile and web toolkit for community health programmes. Plan outreach, assess risk in the field and coordinate screening across locations.
Programme managers need to decide which communities to reach with limited staff and resources. Once teams are out in the field, they also need a way to track coverage and referrals, even when connectivity is unreliable.
The workflow
From planning to fieldwork.
01 / Plan
Predictive maps
Identify communities to prioritise and plan where to send screening teams.
02 / Collect
Mobile application
Record screening visits with configurable questionnaires and use responses to guide referrals for testing.
03 / Monitor
Web dashboard
Coordinate outreach at programme level and see where screenings have taken place.
Capabilities
Tools for teams in the field and at programme level.
Target outreach
Use predictive maps to decide which communities to prioritise for screening.
Plan and monitor missions
Use the web dashboard to organise work and follow progress across screening locations.
Standardise questionnaires
Use a consistent set of questions and score responses against the programme’s risk criteria.
Share updates with programme teams
Send screening data to the dashboard as teams submit it when connected.
Guide referrals
Give field workers guidance on the next step based on screening responses and the programme’s criteria.
Analyse and report
Use maps, charts and automated reports to review activity and adjust plans.
Map screening locations
Capture the geographic coordinates of screening visits to see where outreach has taken place.
Work offline
Collect data without an internet connection and synchronise it once a connection is available.
Field evidence / Democratic Republic of the Congo
TB screening in South Kivu.
Outreach teams used MediScout maps to plan tuberculosis screening, record visits on mobile devices and refer people for testing. The evaluation included five locations predicted to be at higher risk among the 11 study sites.
Questionnaires completed
13,841
Laboratory tests performed
1,153
Laboratory-confirmed pulmonary TB cases
112
The published study reports that 91 of the 112 confirmed cases came from areas predicted to be at higher risk. Savics’ field account also describes higher screening throughput, timely referrals and fewer tests per confirmed case in targeted areas.
The evaluation covered 11 locations across urban, semi-urban and rural settings.
What the maps predicted
Locations with higher predicted incidence also tended to yield a greater proportion of confirmed cases.
How the questionnaire supported triage
Higher scores were associated with more positive results among people tested. The questionnaire helped teams prioritise referrals for laboratory confirmation.
From the field
Community outreach in South Kivu.
“MediScout has been of great added value in our work to find missing tuberculosis cases.”
Dr. Olivier Rusumba, founder of Ambassadors for the Fight against Tuberculosis (ALTB), Bukavu
Rusumba described how the maps helped teams focus village visits on higher-risk communities and how training with the mobile app helped workers complete more screenings per day.
