Healthy Mothers
Improving care for high-risk mothers in a refugee camp
What makes this project unique
We conducted this design sprint remotely due to COVID-19 and as a result, we were able to save tons of costs by facilitating the process with digital tools and relying on the local teams and experts.
Partner
Airbel Impact Lab (Airbel) at the International Rescue Committee (IRC)
Location
Kenya
Focus
Health
In the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, we noticed that pregnant women facing high risks had some trouble keeping up with their healthcare tasks. They were leaning heavily on the healthcare staff for to comply.
Our job was design new solutions to address these gaps. We teamed up with the local healthcare staff and held a design sprint to figure out how we could help mamas get the care they needed.
Approach
We joined forces with the local health staff, tapping into their wisdom and working together to figure out the problem, brainstorm ideas, and test these ideas in real life.
Even though we were miles apart, we got creative and made the design sprint happen virtually. We crafted prototypes that could be shared digitally and then transformed into a physical form by the local team in a low-resource way.
We also equipped the team with research plans and protocols for testing to go out confident in the field. They came back with rich insights that we downloaded and analyzed through virtual synthesis sessions through Miro.
A community health worker gives feedback and suggestions for the EMS app during prototype testing
A view of our giant Miro board that we used to facilitate the design sprint with the health staff
Outcome
We came up with three solutions that addressed the real roots of the problem.
First, we created a 'Mama Passport' that was all about mamas, giving them both the motivation and the info they needed to take charge of their pregnancy care. This special book is still in use, working hand in hand with the one provided by the Ministry of Health.
Second, we aimed to make clinic visits more comfortable for the mamas. That meant making the waiting room more empathetic to pregnant mothers and smoothing out the operations to reduce the wait times.
Lastly, we solved for communication gaps within the healthcare system by testing an electronic medical system (EMS). We figured out exactly what this EMS app should look like and what features it should have, making sure it was user-friendly and useful for our community health workers. This also set the larger healthcare priorities in Kakuma on the right track, as our learnings and designs contributed to the EMS that was beginning its development.
The Mama Passport, designed for easy reading and practical self-care directions