A knowledgeable, skilled and motivated community health workforce forms an important component of an effective universal health coverage strategy. Such workers performs a key developmental role of acting as a bridge between the community and the formal healthcare system. This includes community ownership of efficacy of service delivery and achievement of health outcomes.

Yet countries globally are affected by health workforce challenges of a multifaceted nature, such as difficulties in their education and training, deployment, performance and retention. In data collection and utilization, incomparable infrastructure and capacity constraints lead to a dispersion of information across institutions. Amidst these challenges, future health and social protection systems are evolving, demanding new, intelligent responses to drive efficiency and improve outcomes. Responsible change in any country will rely on the availability, completeness and quality of health workforce data.

The Community Health Worker System developed by CSM, is one such ICT intervention by which countries can progressively institutionalize community participation in health care, track performance of workers and plan for augmenting grass root health service delivery.

Following are some salient features of the system:

• Workforce Registry: Provides a comprehensive overview of the composition and distribution of the workforce- geographic & demographic distribution, institutional sector and facility types
• Citizen Mapping: Provides for registration of citizens (mainly pregnant women, children & senior citizens) attended by health workers
• Service Delivery Tracker: Allows entry of details on health services provided by workers to citizens. Services could include immunization, distribution of medical supplies family planning counselling & treatment of minor injuries.
• Alerts on Milestones: Notifies health workers on upcoming dates of health services (that adhere a strict calendar) to be delivered to each mapped citizen.
• Communication: Allows health workers to inform the health system about on field issues such as medical supplies shortage or disease outbreak.
• Education and training: Provides for pushing supplementary training material & conducting assessments on capacity building

CSM’s solutions in governance and health workforce planning has provided crucial information for policy-makers to take evidence based decisions, so as to contribute towards the attainment of Universal Health Coverage, Sustainable Development Goals and the highest possible level of health for all citizens.