The Digital Mom Project Launches, Targets 200,000 WRA

Iyke Bede

To bridge healthcare gaps for women of reproductive age (WRA), the Lagos Ministry of Health, in Collaboration with mDoc and Supported by MSD for Mothers launches The Digital Mom Project to enhance maternal health outcomes through AI-driven technology Interventions.

The Digital Mom Project leverages technology to enhance maternal health outcomes, combining quality improvement, behavioural science, and AI through web and mobile platforms.

Through an ecosystem of digital platforms whose backbone is built on continuous sourcing, collation and analysing data, The Digital Mom Project aims to proffer solutions towards reducing cases of maternal mortality rates in Nigeria which currently stands at 512 deaths for every 100,000 live births, with 3.8 per cent of WRA severely malnourished.

Project Manager, mDoc, Chiagozie Abiakam explained that the project is designed to enhance the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of mothers through a seamless virtual and in-person support platform.

Through mDoc’s CompleteHealth platform, women are provided with virtual coaches and digital nudges to guide them to make better health decisions over time. With its NaviHealth platform, patients can access and retrieve their medical records in real-time via easily navigable dashboards.

The project includes in-person community centres in strategic locations in Lagos, as well as capacity building and teleeducation programs such as its Garden in a Box program that provides seedlings to families to grow crops to augment the nutritional needs of pregnant mothers.

Stating the importance of data collection for analysis and evaluation of progress in the health sector, Director, MSD for Mothers, Iyadunni Olubode, explained that MSD’s partnering with mDoc will help to improve living standards for WRA.

“Data collection for health is critical because it helps us to understand first of all, what the challenges are,” Olubode noted. “Nigeria is one of the greatest contributors to the high global maternal mortality. This is something that MSD for Mothers has put its resources behind to help bring private sector expertise or resources to the table to help address and improve maternal outcomes globally.”

She continued: “We are working with mDoc in The Digital Mom project, and it is equipping mothers by providing the framework and tools to support women to better manage their health so that they can experience a more successful pregnancy journey. We’re excited about the kickoff of this effort and the expected results that we hope to see from this collaboration.

Lauding the efforts of mDoc, Head Membership and Partnership, Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PSHAN), Ota Akhigbe said the project is a timely innovation that will be instrumental in effectively providing care to the most vulnerable in society.

“Our doctor healthcare facility programme at PSHAN, where we are building a network of primary healthcare centres across Nigeria, this project is focused on empowering women using digital services. So for us, with this partnership with mDoc, we can leverage our primary health care centres that are in rural areas with the targets of the vulnerable population, which are mostly women and children.”

According to Abiakam, the project aims to onboard 200,000 WRAs within 30 months.