Maternal Health Innovations: Improving Access to Care

By: Kayla McGowan, Project Coordinator, Women and Health Initiative, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Facilitating access to quality care—whether by addressing structural barriers, constructing key messages, or strengthening decision-makers—is the crux of improving maternal and newborn health. This includes assessing current community needs, working with community members and leaders to develop interventions, and working through anticipated challenges.

The Maternal Health Innovations Fund, an MHTF project, recently supported several projects in collaboration with The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) and Pakistan’s Agha Khan University (AKU) that investigated the issue of access to care in a variety of contexts.

Icddr,b and AKU have published 10 knowledge briefs summarizing findings from their recent maternal health research that took place in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Southern Kyrgystan, and Pakistan. The knowledge briefs identify urgent needs in maternal health, highlight improvements in the field, and offer recommendations for addressing gaps in access, quality, and measurement of care based on the implementation research conducted under this project.

Five of the projects were focused on improving access to care:

• Digital blood management system: Making blood transfusion more accessible at public hospitals of in Bangladesh
• Improving communication and transportation linkages improves utilisation of health facilities in Sindh, Pakistan
• Can redirecting mothers and newborns to different levels of service improve care in Kyrgyzstan?
• Determinants and barriers to healthcare seeking for pregnancy and childbirth in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan
• Area-based mortality reviews to identify gaps in maternal healthcare in Afghanistan

Learn more about the Maternal Health Innovations Fund and read the rest of the knowledge briefs >>