Digital health and entrepreneurship in Primary Health Care settings – Kenya’s experience

Abstract

The limited number of sonographers in developing countries and high cost of conventional obstetric ultrasound screening services in high level facilities led to only 6.9% of pregnant women accessing the service in rural areas. However, Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) services in Primary Health Care (PHC) settings has shown the potential to enable developing countries implement the WHO requirement of pregnant women accessing obstetric ultrasound screening before 24 weeks gestation. Through POCUS, life threatening complications can be easily identified and managed on time thus reversing the Maternal Mortality trends in developing countries. Given the ease to learn and use POCUS technology, there is an opportunity to train selected PHC health professionals to offer the service at an affordable cost that supports routine acquisition of essential ultrasound screening supplies and entrepreneurial incentivisation of the care providers. The aim of this paper is to document viability of POCUS in a PHC setting of a developing country