e-Mamta: Government of Gujarat’s initiative to reduce maternal and child mortality

By Anju Sharma

Health details of about 85 lakh families in the entire state covering more than 80 percent of the population have been entered so far in the software’s database and system generated unique Health IDs have been provided to all

With the goal of improving the Human Development Index, the Government of Gujarat is celebrating the current year as its Golden/Swarnim year. The Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 of reducing maternal and child mortality are the Swarnim Gujarat goals. Reduction in child mortality includes under five mortality, infant mortality and proportion of children immunised against measles, whereas maternal mortality reduction is possible through an enhanced emphasis on institutionalisation of deliveries. The focus of the Health and Family Welfare Department is to bring down the infant mortality and maternal mortality rates as envisioned by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).

e-Mamta – Mother and child tracking application

As a major initiative in this regard, the Health and Family Welfare Department of the Government of Gujarat, has introduced a mother and child name-based tracking information management system called ‘e-Mamta’ in collaboration with the NIC, Gujarat. This is the first-of-its-kind system, that has been conceptualised and developed by Gujarat and the Government of India has adopted it for replication in all other states.

A web-based software application accessed through www.e-mamta.guj.nic.in, the system covers the entire population of Gujarat with special emphasis on rural, urban slum and slum-like population. Health details of about 85 lakh families in the entire state consisting of about 4.30 crore individuals covering more than 80 percent of the population have thus been entered so far in the software’s database and system generated unique Health IDs have been provided to all.

The system provides a management tool to the service providers at the grassroot level to determine the potential recipients of the services along with their details, through comprehensive work plans

The system aims at registering individual pregnant mothers and children in the age group of 0-6 and adolescents along with their full details to ensure complete service delivery of antenatal care (ANC), child birth, post natal care (PNC), immunisation, nutrition  and adolescent services and to track the left outs, if any. It also provides a management tool to the service providers at the grassroot level to determine the potential recipients of the services along with their details, through comprehensive work plans. Finally, the services are aggregated to generate reports that are reliable and valid. The approach is therefore to plan, deliver and monitor, which is proactive rather than reactive.

What makes e-Mamta unique?

Certain salient features of the e-Mamta application include:

• Generation of work plans for the health workers for comprehensive health service delivery
• Real-time reports of the due and delivered services to mothers and children
• Instant analysis of the data through dashborad
• SMS alerts to beneficiaries and service providers for better service delivery, improved coverage and follow up
• Details of various incentives paid to all cadres of health workers individual records for the benefits of JSY, BSY and CY schemes
• Online health record/immunisation card of all individuals of Gujarat will be available in the software and will be generated from any DH/CHC/PHC or e-Gram center
• The programme is integrated with the HMIS and various reports (Form No 6, 7, 8, 9, etc.) and registers (Register No. 2 , etc.) will automatically get generated from it
• UID compatibility
• Interdepartmental coordination – ICDS, Education Department, RSBY, etc. will be integrated in this programme
• All other National Health Programmes to be integrated with e-Mamta
• The application is already in place in 26 districts (including private healthcare providers) of Gujarat and announced for National Rollout in June 2010 at the NRHM Review meeting in Bhopal.

Future plans

Future plans involve completely covering the gamut to provide comprehensive healthcare delivery to the rural population, mainly including the following:

• Use of Mobile-based technology for more efficient implementation
• Integration with National Programmes
• Complete Health Record
• Integration with e-Sewa and e-Gram
• Basis for ICDs, primary education, school health programme.

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