Mamakiba (Mother + Savings)

Just come across a really interesting mHealth service for pregnant women - take a look and let us know what you think. It would be great to hear from anyone who has seen this in action and to know how it has improved the experience of pregnant women in the areas it serves.

Mamakiba is a patient-facing SMS savings calculator and prepayment tracking tool specifically designed to help low-income women be able to save and prepay for their maternal health needs such as ante-natal care (ANC) and clinical delivery. In our usage, prepay means that the savings deposits are “locked-in” towards a specific service and must be met before service is delivered. Only after the service is delivered is the amount deducted from the savings account, unlike a standard prepayment.

The target customers are pregnant women in peri-urban areas such as Eastern Nairobi who have cell phones linked to M-Pesa accounts, who save for their pregnancy, who cannot afford expensive services at premiere hospitals but desire an alternative to government hospitals (where long waits and poor customer service are key issues) and private local clinics (where qualification of medical personnel is unreliable). Mamakiba is a savings and prepayment platform that will be put to real use for Jacaranda Health, a startup social venture for maternal health based in Nairobi, whose model of mobile units and ground clinics aims to bring a systems approach to standardising and delivering high-quality and affordable continuum of care for mothers and their babies.

Mamakiba addresses two particular areas of the customer’s financial planning needs in having a baby, which are establishing and maintaining a savings target for maternal healthcare costs and prepaying towards this target in a convenient way using M-Pesa. The customer registers at the Jacaranda Health clinics during the first visit by opening an electronic medical record, which simultaneously registers her for Mamakiba should she wish to join. As part of the standard patient information data collection, she provides 1) her full name, 2) mobile phone number and 3) pregnancy term. If she opts into Mamakiba, she also provides 4) her savings target, which is tied into the Jacaranda Health bundled services including the WHO recommended 4 ANC visits, lab tests, health counseling and normal delivery or emergency treatment 5) the amount she can deposit per period 6) the frequency of the deposit periods and 7) validation of an M-Pesa account. If she does not own one, she could possibly activate the M-Pesa account through the Jacaranda Health registration process or return later to opt into Mamakiba after registering with an M-Pesa agent.

After she has opted into Mamakiba, the savings calculator estimates two amounts a) the total amount she needs to save for the selected bundled service and b) the minimum amount she needs to deposit to savings prior to the next ANC visit. Taking into account the customer’s specified periodic deposit amount and deposit period frequency values, the rules engine calculates the minimum periodic amount she needs to save to reach her overall target and the minimum amount she must deposit towards her first ANC visit along with the date of the visit.

When she returns home, she begins to receive two kinds of SMS. She receives an SMS alert that reminds her to start saving the calculated amount, at the start of the specified period and an SMS savings deposit prompt of the calcuated amount, at the end of the period. She makes the deposit through M-Pesa and this amount is updated to the patient’s electronic medical record automatically. Each time she makes any deposit, she receives an SMS confirmation of the deposited amount, her new total savings to date and remaining balance to meet the overall target.

There's more information on the service and how it could be developed in the future here.