mHealth: TICANALYSE digitises Burkina Faso's health information system

On Friday 9 December 2016, the Ministry of Health officially launched a telephone-based system that has revolutionised health care in rural areas of Burkina Faso. Called mHealth, the system designed by TICANALYSE enables integrated management of childhood illnesses. It has been implemented with the support of UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  

The mortality rate for children under the age of 5 is 80 per 1,000 in Burkina. And according to Dr Simon Sanou, 51 out of every 100 people in Burkina Faso use mobile phones.

With this in mind, the Ministry of Health, in its fight against infant and child mortality, has decided to incorporate new technologies into its efforts to improve health conditions in community areas.

Combining technology and health is the challenge taken up by TICANALYSE, which has designed the mHealth Burkina system, the solution to the problem. An innovative device, mHealth Burkina is a new approach for rural communities.

As a result, demonstration sessions on the use of mobile phones for data collection and transmission in health and social promotion centres (CSPS) have been set up.

MHealth has thus made it possible, on the one hand, to boost the productivity of Community Health Workers and significantly reduce the infant mortality rate. It has also facilitated the transmission of qualitative data on case management and facilitated the resupply of medicines.  This will be achieved by equipping CBHAs with mobile phones equipped with the application.

To date, six health districts are using mHealth Burkina, and a total of 182 ICPs and 1,638 ASBCs using mHealth Burkina have been added to these districts, according to data received from the Department of Computer Services and Telehealth (DSITS). These include the health districts of Yako, with G53 ICPs and 500 ASBs; Courcy, with 34 ICPs and 218 ASBCs; Seguenega, with 23 ICPs and 243 ASBCs; Ouayigouya, with 33 ICPs and 243 ASBCs; Thiou, with 19 ICPs and 201 ASBCs; and Titao, with 20 ICPs and 229 ASBCs.

TICANALYSE is proud to have helped put this technological infrastructure in place.