Mobile calculators help project safe abortion supply needs

6th June 2017

Using a new mobile health (mHealth) app, healthcare providers in Nigeria have been able to plan for continuous availability of safe abortion commodities on their premises. Supported by the Innovation Fund in a special safe abortion round financed by Norad, Coalition member Ipas piloted the mHealth app with 46 health care providers in the public and private sectors.

The app was designed to help estimate more accurately and efficiently a facility's average monthly consumption of manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) and medical abortion (MA) supplies, and determine minimum and maximum inventory levels. In-depth interviews revealed that most of the trained providers found the MA/MVA calculators easy to use. The calculators were found to provide faster and more accurate estimation of needed commodities, project supply needs for up to three months, and allow more efficient and effective resource management and stocktaking, thereby preventing both MVA and MA commodity stockouts.  

Based on these positive results from the pilot, the Ipas Africa Alliance program has begun to use the mobile tools to calculate supply needs during on-going facility site visits in Kenya. Training materials developed through this pilot have been used to support these efforts and widespread dissemination is planned. DKT International, a major procurer of RH commodities in Nigeria, is interested in extending the training around the new MA/MVA mobile app for its own sales team and network of health providers. 

The medical abortion calculator can be found here, and the MVA calculator here. For more information, please contact Briton Bieze at biezeb@ipas.org. 

Category: Nigeria

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