Public health services information dissemination platform: case of Machakos County

Abstract

Accessing public health services information for a majority of people in the sub-Saharan region has been marked with numerous challenges. Key of these include undeveloped structural support systems and technological issues. There is a major problem faced by patients and their families in accessing public health services information due the current platforms used to disseminate the information. Technological issues such as use of banners to convey public health service information have challenges including, the banners are torn down and in some instances get rained on thus limiting the number of people who can access the health service information. This study aims to come up with a public health services information dissemination platform using USSD technology. The USSD application will be integrated with analytical back-end for presenting summary of health services requested by the users. Agile software methodology was used which allowed faster iteration and more frequent release with subsequent user feedback. The advantages of the implemented system is that USSD works on both smartphones and low end phones. USSD also works on phones which are not connected to the internet. The system will be of great help to both users with smartphones and low-end phones. Users will get public information regarding the health services information near their area of location.