Project Name: Continuum of Care Services (CCS)
Organisation: CARE India, Dimagi and Grameen Foundation
Project Location & Coverage Area: Bihar
Project URL: http://www.dimagi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/CARE-India-MOTECH-Case-Study.pdf
Area of intervention: Health & Nutrition

Bihar is one of India’s largest and poorest states with over 100 million people. The state has one of the country’s highest rates of maternal, neonatal and infant mortality. To address MNCHN-related challenges, CARE India along with the Government of Bihar (GoB) and other partners, as part of the Integrated Family Health Initiative (IFHI), launched the Continuum of Care Services (CCS) that offers a comprehensive tool for mobile workers, providing coordinated care for one million people in Bihar, India. Its aim is to cover the 1000-day window of pregnancy through the child’s second year of age, to deliver ‘the right messages at the right time’ to pregnant women and newborn children within the community.
CCS uses mobile phone to facilitate operational ease; automate tracking of mother and child health status; deliver customized counseling in the local language; support monitoring and handholding of FLWs; establish a system of validated information on field-level health service delivery; make this information available in real time to the decision makers and planners; and design a health information system with the potential to be integrated within GoB’s mother and child tracking system (MCTS) and eventually strengthening it. By digitizing data at the field level, the CCS mobile application improves accuracy and timeliness, and allows for smart data management of health service delivery.
Additionally, CCS has created a continuous and credible digital record of healthcare data, generated at the village level, and made it available to managers and decision makers in real time. This helps them to not only monitor progress but also to make informed program implementation-related decisions and provide supportive supervision for increasing reach, quality and timeliness of healthcare services.

Reach & Road Ahead

Launched in July 2012, CCS is being implemented in Saharsa district of Bihar through 512 FLWs, supported by 58 supervisors and 12 managers to deliver health and nutrition services to a population of 8,50,000. FLWs, their supervisors and managers have been equipped with mobile phones, along with initial handholding support and training. In a 16-month duration, a total of 22,381 women and children have been registered under CCS and 1,81,451 home visits conducted by FLWs. Care India has partnered with various organizations including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Government of Bihar, BBC Media Action, Grameen Foundation, Dimagi for sustaining the project.