Digital health is revolutionizing the landscape of global healthcare by focusing on the stratification of pregnancy risk to ensure that patients are put on the appropriate care pathway.
They are seeking projects that will help develop and deliver an ARS solution in sub-Saharan Africa. Be a part of it by applying for this grant!
Sponsoring Agency: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Type of Fund: Challenge
Deadline: January 13, 2022
Details:
The Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Discovery & Tools team believes that the ability to leverage digital health systems can enhance care and reduce adverse birth outcomes in low-and-middle-income countries. One area of focus is the stratification of pregnancy risk to ensure that patients are put on the appropriate care pathway.
This can enable tertiary facilities to focus their constrained resources on high-risk pregnancies, while low-risk pregnancies are managed at lower levels of care. Antenatal Risk Stratification (ARS) is a portfolio of devices and data that predicts a pregnant woman’s risk of experiencing adverse birth outcomes in early pregnancy. Building and implementing an ARS solution requires three key steps. 1) Collect data on pregnant women (e.g., patient history, clinical data, and diagnostic results with an emphasis on ultrasound and hemoglobin assessment). 2) Use data as inputs in a robust, AI decision model that accurately predicts a pregnant woman’s risk of adverse birth outcomes. 3) Support clinical decision-making by using the predicted risk to pre-emptively triage patients across different levels of the healthcare system.
Through this process, ARS would enable more efficient resource allocation by sending the riskiest patients to high-level facilities, while referring low-risk patients to the community or public health centers. ARS would aim to improve the quality of care for pregnant women by ensuring that they can receive the right level of care.
Developing and delivering an ARS solution will require a robust digital backbone including tools for data collection, automated analytics, and platforms that connect to patients and healthcare providers. Before ARS can be successfully implemented, a landscape of digital health devices, partners, and services must be put into place.
Eligibility Criteria
It seeks projects that will help develop and deliver an ARS solution in sub-Saharan Africa. Proposals should endeavor to build upon existing solutions to help support ARS. Potential options include (but are not limited to):
- Researching implementation methods for a solution (e.g., conducting market research for an existing app that supports one or more of the objectives outlined above)
- Expanding the scope of a solution (e.g., translating a web-based app to mobile platforms to increase engagement)
- Adding features/functionality to a solution (e.g., adding cloud-based data collection to a mobile app)
- Improving the delivery of a solution (e.g., integrating a mobile app into an existing clinical health system)
It will consider solutions that are:
- Developed and/or actively supported in sub-Saharan Africa (note: development/active support does not include cases when groups outside of SSA are testing their solutions on users in SSA)
- Delivered in sub-Saharan Africa
- Providing pregnancy-related services
- Offered directly to pregnant women (i.e., patient-facing)
- Currently available for use and interested in expansion
- Serving a substantial and active user base in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., more than ~100 users)
- Digitally integrated (i.e., have a strong, technical component)
- Clearly linked to the development and implementation of ARS
- Preference for solutions that reach women in both rural and urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa
For more information, visit Global Grand Challenges.
