A midwife uses PWS application (Credit: Paulus Enggal / KOMPAK)
The Health Office of Bener Meriah District, together with KOMPAK, conducted a focus group discussion for midwives from 13 Public Health Centres or Puskesmas on August 6, 2019. This activity was attended by 34 midwives and representatives from the health department. The purpose of the focus group discussions was to get input and feedback from midwives who have used the Bidan Sehati application so that it can be refined in the next version.
This discussion was a follow-up to the training of the Bidan Sehati application last June. Positive developments were seen after the training where all participants were able to use the mobile app and dashboard. The coordinating midwives followed up on the results of the training by organising training in utilising of the application to village midwives in their respective Puskesmas. The midwives bring the data of pregnant women and directly enter it into the app during training, so they have experience using this app instantly.
As of August 2019, 191 midwives had used the Bidan Sehati app. This application aims to improve the quality of health services for pregnant women so that they can contribute to the reduction in maternal and infant mortality rates in Bener Meriah District.
The discussions succeeded in capturing input related to features, data structure, reporting and working online and offline. In addition, this application was viewed as an effective means of reducing risk factors for pregnant women and as an advocacy tool to improve the quality of mother and child health services by providing data to inform policy changes, referral systems and more equitable distribution of health workers in Bener Meriah District.
"This application helps our task as midwives because it can detect risk factors faced by pregnant women quickly and accurately, so we can immediately plan the steps to deal with it," said Eka Liana, village midwife Simpang Rahmat.
PWS Mobile Application (Credit: Paulus Enggal / KOMPAK)
Since 2014, PEKKA, together with KOMPAK and MAMPU have been undertaking various initiatives to strengthen women leadership in villages.
The BANGGA Papua program acknowledges how crucial the role of mothers is: they are considered the ones who know best regarding their children's health and nutritional needs.
The Population and Civil Registration Office (Disdukcapil) of Bima District launched an innovative civil registration service for poor and vulnerable communities in June 2018.