Global Strategies’ NoviGuide Newborn Essentials is now one of the largest digital health programs focused on small and sick newborns in the world. A program that began in 4 sites in eastern Uganda is now being used across 37 hospitals in Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia. Nurses, midwives and doctors are using the software at a pace of 110,000 assessments per year with more sites coming online each month.
“Since we started using NoviGuide, we’ve seen fewer early newborn deaths and fewer babies readmitted to the neonatal unit,” says Sister Mercy Obizuyo, “the tool also gives us more time for learning, which has improved our skills. NoviGuide has truly transformed our hospital, making our care better and leaving mothers more satisfied.”
A unique feature of NoviGuide is that it helps the nurse or midwife with clinical decision making while capturing data that can be used by health administrators to identify barriers to care delivery. A nurse may use the NoviGuide to accurately dose antibiotics while the data generated can highlight stockouts and patterns in medication use.
“Scaling timely and life-saving newborn care widely is the number one child health challenge today,” says program manager Jean Armas. “NoviGuide Newborn Essentials is a powerful tool to help health systems reach this elusive goal.”
The next step is to scale the NoviGuide Newborn Essentials program to more hospitals and new countries with an ultimate goal to reach a pace of 1,000,000 neonatal assessments per year by 2027. If you’re interested in starting a NoviGuide Newborn Essentials Program at your hospital, email us at info@globalstrategies.org.
