The “Bangladesh Knowledge Management Initiative (BKMI) helps the government along with USAID https://www.usaid.gov, to partner with stakeholders to further develop effective Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) interventions to help the people in Bangladesh.
Very often field health workers in Bangladesh lack up-to-date information and innovative materials to effectively counsel clients. To help in this situation, the BKMI worked with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) www.mohfw.gov.bd, the Behavior Change Communication Working Group, plus community practitioners in Bangladesh from government, non-government organizations along with partners and other interested organizations to develop the eToolkit for field health workers.
The eToolkit is a digital library of print and audiovisual materials presented in a simple graphic format perhaps on a tablet with the information organized by topic and sub-topics. The eToolkit provides a full range of information health, nutrition, family planning, and enables the category of field health workers to assist clients on a particular topic related to health and family issues.
A pilot study of the eToolkit was conducted from May to August 2013 and found that using the eToolkit increased the field worker’s credibility 18 to 59 percent as the first point of contact for information on general health issues, 38 to 54 percent for family planning, and 29 to 50 percent on issues related to nutrition.
Following the successful pilot, BKMI began working with the MoHFW, NGOs, and private sector organizations to scale up the use of the eToolkit nationwide in part made possible by an investment in ICT infrastructure by MoHFW, and others.
After the pilot, BKMI’s second phase took place from 2013 to 2016 under USAID’s funded global Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3). This program is a five year global project jointly implemented by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs http://ccp.jhu.edu and the Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs www.bangladesh-ccp.org .
In taking the next steps to maximize the impact of the investment in this technology, the program needs to strategically:
- Invest in a procurement process that defines the minimum specifications needed to accommodate existing tools with room for some expansion as new tools are developed
- Develop a strategic coordinated plan to maximize the return on the MoHFW’s investment in technology
- Provide supervision to ensure that the field health workers are using the tablets correctly and deal with any challenges that may arise
- Provide technical support to help field workers with any problems they may face when using the equipment