ttC: Timed and Targeted Counseling APP for Community Health Workers

The Timed and Targeted Counseling (ttC) mobile app for Community Health workers was designed  to support home visits and community health worker supervision. It targets time (when it is needed), space (by home vists), and individualized approaches (messages and barriers focused on the circumstances of a specific family). This app was created to support the community health intervention of the Con Amor y Cuidados, Madres y Bebés Sanos program and includes songs, rhymes, and narrated videos (ttC+).  Content is divided into 15 modules.

The app was used in Honduras for two years as part of a randomized controlled trial and pilot program in conjunction with IDB’s Salud Mesoamerica Initiative. The study of the social networks of these communities in Honduras is being developed since 2014, thanks to the agreement established between the Human Nature Laboratory of Yale University, the Ministry of Health of Honduras and the Mesoamerica Health Initiative. The study focuses on 160 rural communities where 40,000 families live.

The project, Con Amor y Cuidados, Madres y Bebés Sanos, was distributed to communities in October 2016. The initiative focuses on the idea that health is also conditioned by practices, beliefs and attitudes of the family in one's own homes. The lifestyles adopted by families are the first line of defense to reduce maternal, neonatal and childhood mortality. 

The mHealth tool runs on the CommCare platform developed by Dimagi, uses sophisticated logic to manage information nominally, create alerts and referrals, and serves as a guide to the community health worker during administration of the intervention. This increases the quality of the intervention and helps to ensure that it is applied the same way across households. It also reduces the administrative burden and streamlines reporting. The types of alerts and protocol in visiting houses was jointly developed with Yale Institute for Network Science to ensure that the study needs were incorporated into the intervention. The health promoters, also known as “Agents of Community Change”, visit the communities every month to help making living habits of people in the communities as healthy as possible. They use the digital tablets as a tool to promote behavioral changes that contributes in creating environments for healthier lives. Through stories and songs that are interactive and culturally adapted to the audience, the digital tablet explains (among other topics) how to plan a birth; how to care for a baby during its first days; or how to respect and treat women in a dignified manner and share household chores. In addition to providing information in a fun way, the tablet supports Community Change Agents to do nominal monitoring of their families, refer health problems to health units, improve supervision of the intervention and monitor in real time.

Related videos:

Programa Innovación Tecnológica Copán from Iniciativa de Salud Mesoamérica on Vimeo.

Tablet Honduras from Iniciativa Salud Mesoamérica on Vimeo.

Download CommCare from Google Play, an open source software platform created by Dimagi, and scan the QR code to access the demo version of the app. User name: test1/ Password: 123