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Afya-Tek. Digital referral and decision support system using biometrics across the continuum of care

Origin language: English
Cover image
Target population
Pregnant women , +2
Beneficiaries100001 - 500K
EvidenceBoth
Start date2019/06
End dateOngoing
StageRoutine project/operational
Country
Tanzania
Coverage
National
Nb of implementation sites
152
Lead organization
Implementation partners

Health Focus Area
Sexual and Reproductive Health
Maternal and child health
Services
Decision Support
Community-based information systems
Enabling technologies
Software
Standards
N/A
Tools
N/A
Funding sources
Donors
Business model
No business model
Funders
Summary
Afya-Tek is a digital health program designed to strengthen the continuity of care between three key primary healthcare actors in Tanzania: Community Health Workers (CHWs), health facilities, and private Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlets (ADDOs). Built as a mobile-application–based digital referral and decision-support system, Afya-Tek focuses on improving maternal, child, and adolescent health. Co-created with users and aligned with national systems, the open-source platform guides providers with individualized decision support and recommends the appropriate next steps—education, treatment, or referral. Program impact include: - Over 500 CHWs, FHWs and drug shops supported - Over 300,000 people served - Nearly 900,000 health visits conducted - Up to 95% referral completion rate, 3 times higher than traditional programs - Improved medication dispensing by 2-3 times for child diarrhea and pneumonia Afya-Tek is on a pathway to scale and has been successfully integrated into the Government of Tanzania’s national digital health system, the Unified Community System. The innovation is now expanding to support additional adolescent health services, mental health, and NCDs. Afya-Tek, as part of Unified Community System (UCS), is successfully integrated with the health facility solution, GoTHOMIS, via the Health Information Mediator (HIM) and Muungano gateways. This work was done in collaboration with government technical teams. Now the team is preparing for go-live with the government.
Keywords
Community based care
Community health service delivery
Digitally enabled integrated care approaches
Clinical Decision Support Systems CDSS CoP
Community health workers
Publications
Dillip et al. Using digital technology as a platform to strengthen the continuum of care at community level for maternal, child and adolescent health in Tanzania: introducing the Afya-Tek programBMC Health Services Research (2024) 24:865 Towards a digitally-enabled, community-based responsive health system in Tanzania: a formative study for the Afya-Tek digitised health initiative Sarkar, Nandini D P et al. The Lancet Global Health, Volume 8, S35Haroun, Y., Sambaiga, R., Sarkar, N. et al. A human centred approach to digital technologies in health care delivery among mothers, children and adolescents. BMC Health Serv Res 22, 1393 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08744-2
Insights - Lessons learnt
Challenges
N/A
Recommendations
1. People-centered solutions: Design solutions for user needs by co-creating and introducing human-centered design. Introduce iterative testing and feedback loops. 2. Work with all levels of government from the beginning: Collaborate with and build government capacity from national to local levels, and strengthen government ownership of systems. 3. Leverage existing infrastructure and solutions: Build on existing platforms and resources to support interoperability and optimize resources. 4. Focus on systems, not only technology: Strategically employ technology and complement with strong governance, financing, and training. 5. Iterative scale: Scale gradually by piloting, balancing standardization with local adaptation, and managing risks through phased growth. 6. Introduce monitoring and evaluation early: Define success metrics early, monitor program performance and impact, and facilitate culture of learning and continuous improvement.
Recommendations
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Any additional questions?
iDHA (Project ID)
2dxb48
Project links
https://www.d-tree.org/afya-tek/
Origin of information
Project stakeholder
Data source link
N/A
Added to the platform on
2024-10-24
Project editors
Last update by
Sophie Delaigue on 2026-01-29
Number of views
474
WHO classifications
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