CAPSMART- Capacity building of front line health workers by smartphone enabled training based on community derived decision markers for primary prevention and health promotion of non-communicable diseases

Abstract

In resource constrained settings, the decision makers in a health system, i.e. health policy planners attempt to distribute the available funds on a priority basis. This leads to a skewed view point since the beneficiaries, i.e. community tries to maximize the aggregated total health benefit conferred. Capsmart project aims to introduce a composite user developed community ‘decision’ marker which takes into account all the perspectives of relevant stakeholders in a healthcare system. The derived perspectives, based on participatory research and a sound scientific methodology, will inform health policy, and provide an alternative tool to analyze the cost effectiveness of health policies, and prioritize the resource allocation to national health programs. The developed composite decision marker will be custom built, validated and developed as a smartphone application for training and building public health capacity of the frontline health workers on health promotion and primary prevention of non-communicable diseases. Pilot testing the applicability, feasibility and sustainability of a smartphone based training package will enable future decisions to be taken on applicability of the mobile computing and health care technology in developing countries, more so in resource constrained low and middle income countries