The Centre on Friday launched four IT-based healthcare initiatives, including an audio-based mobile service, which will deliver weekly messages to families about pregnancy and child birth, an IT-enabled tool to help quit tobacco, and a dedicated helpline for TB patients.
Speaking at the launch of the AIIMS OPD Transformation Project, which aims at using Information Technology to ease access to services at AIIMS, Union health minister J.P. Nadda said the audio mobile services would benefit two crore pregnant women and an equal number of infants.
Announcing the first of the four initiatives “Kilkari” to mark the birth anniversary of Madan Mohan Malaviya and birthday of Atal Behari Vajpayee, Mr Nadda said it is an audio-based mobile service that delivers weekly audio messages and is being supported by Tata Consultancy Services as part of its CSR initiative.
“Each pregnant woman and infant’s mother, registered in the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS), a web-enabled name-based system to monitor and ensure delivery of full spectrum of services to all pregnant women and children, would receive weekly voice messages relevant to the stage of pregnancy or age of the infant.
“The 72 messages would reach the targeted beneficiaries from the 4th month of pregnancy until the child is one year old. On an average, the duration of each message is two minutes. Such messages will empower and educate women and parents to help create a better environment in maternal and child health,” Mr Nadda said.
He said the service will be provided free of cost to the beneficiaries and in the first phase of implementation, such messages would be sent to the pregnant wo-men and infants’ mothers in Jharkhand, Orissa, UP, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pra-desh and Rajasthan.
