VillageReach Programs
ICT to Improve Health Services for Mothers and Children (Chipatala cha pa Foni - CCPF) - Malawi
VillageReach is working with the Ministry of Health to develop and implement an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) program to increase access to the essential package of maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) services. This program includes a toll‐free 24‐hour case management hotline for maternal and child health advice and referral, and uses mobile phones to send personalized voice and SMS health messages to women regarding their pregnancy and the health needs of their children.
Pharmacy Assistants Program - Malawi
VillageReach is partnering with the Malawi Ministry of Health, the Malawi College of Health Sciences, and the University of Washington Global Medicines Program to implement a new approach to the training, deployment, and support of pharmacy assistants in Malawi. The three-year initiative was developed to address key barriers to medicines availability at the health facility and district level.
Kwitanda Community Health - Malawi
Since 2008, VillageReach has led a program to strengthen the health system at the community and health center levels by building capacity of community health workers, implementing cost-effective interventions to reduce malaria and diarrheal diseases, and improving communication between community health workers and the health center through SMS communication systems.
Mozambique Dedicated Logistics System
VillageReach has worked in Mozambique since the organization was established in 2001. Starting in 2002, a 5-year demonstration project was conducted to ensure prompt and universal access to vaccines in northern Mozambique.
Since 2010, VillageReach has been providing technical assistance to the Mozambique Ministry of Health to scale the Dedicated Logistics System nationally.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
Since its establishment, VillageReach has identified numerous opportunities to work closely with ministries of health to strengthen public sector health in sub-Saharan Africa. To date, the organization has established new programs focused on logistics, supply chain and community health interventions in Malawi (three programs: ICT to Improve Health Services for Mothers and Children, Pharmacy Assistants Program, Kwitanda Community Health Program) and Mozambique (Dedicated Logistics Program).
Our growing expertise in health system capacity building has also attracted increase interest in our services to support many additional programs. Since 2009, we have worked with such organizations as Concern Worldwide, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Fund, and USAID to provide technical expertise across health worker development and training, and logistics and supply chain improvement.
In 2011, VillageReach established OpenLMIS, an open source initiative to reduce the time and costs of deployments of management information systems (MIS) that health systems require to capture and report community health and performance tracking data. In the past two years, the following organizations have joined the initiative as member-partners: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, John Snow Inc., Management Sciences for Health, PATH, Rockefeller Foundation and USAID. We expect to see the first implementations of OpenLMIS in African countries by early 2014.