WHO/Gareth Bentley
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Em Care
Emergency settings create unique challenges for the delivery of clinical care according to WHO’s recommended guidelines. Em Care is one of WHO’s responses to the current situation.
Current situation
- 50% of maternal, newborn and under five mortality occur in humanitarian settings
Healthcare workers attend to a high volume of patients and need to quickly make diagnoses
Referral from primary to secondary care is often delayed, or unavailable, and this can prevent correct or timely treatment
Existing WHO guidelines are in printed formats that do not support accurate and timely diagnoses in resource-constrained environments
WHO guidance needs to be adapted to the specific challenges of emergency settings
Difficult to quickly and easily put WHO guidelines and care pathways into the hands of frontline healthcare workers
Our solution
Em Care is a digital platform which delivers clinical decision support to frontline health workers in emergency settings.
WHO/M. Nieuwenhof
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Our vision
by 2030 improve health outcomes…
Improve health outcomes in emergencies by making WHO’s established clinical guidelines available whenever, wherever and by whomever.
WHO
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Credits
Our mission
As a first step, create a…
To achieve this Em Care will create a digital solution for healthcare workers using WHO’s SMART guidelines to better serve maternal and child care in an emergency setting.
Em Care objectives
- Be a digital platform through which WHO recommendations can be delivered at the point of care and regularly updated
Initially improve health outcomes for mothers and children in emergency settings by presenting IMCI in a digital format. This will be expanded to more age groups and health conditions in the future
Ensure that IMCI digital content is made available to frontline health workers via a mobile reference app, maintaining fidelity with original guidance
Promote a modular, reusable ecosystem to which member states and external partners can collaborate and contribute
Health care workers can use the Em Care app on their tablet or mobile phone to access WHO guidance at the point of care and better assess, treat and/or refer a patient. The aim is to improve the quality of clinical care and, ultimately, lead to better patient outcomes.
Em Care promotes a modular, reusable ecosystem to which member states and external partners can contribute. It ensures the digital content maintains fidelity with original WHO guidance, whilst also making appropriate adaptations to emergency settings.
SMART guidelines
SMART Guidelines (Standards-based, Machine-readable, Adaptive, Requirements-based, and Testable) are a comprehensive set of reusable digital health components (e.g., interoperability standards, code libraries, algorithms, technical and operational specifications) that transform the guideline adaptation and implementation process to preserve fidelity and accelerate uptake.
SMART Guidelines provide a five-step pathway to advance the adoption of best clinical and data practices, even if a country is not yet fully digital:
Pilot program
In 2021-22, Em Care will focus on emergency settings in the Africa and Eastern Mediterranean regions, with the key deliverable of developing and piloting a reference application at field level in early 2022.