Aga Khan University’s Hayat app has been awarded a prestigious silver medal at the international Digital Health Awards 2023. Hayat’s innovative approach to improving access to healthcare provision using technology set it apart and made it a worthy award recipient under the Mobile Digital Health Resources category of the competition. “Hayat has played an instrumental role in strengthening the public health system across Gilgit-Baltistan. By reducing the burden of paperwork and manual data entry, it has improved the capacity of health workers, thereby improving accountability, monitoring and governance mechanisms,” commented Mr. Sana Ullah, Secretary, Department of Health, Gilgit-Baltistan.
Programmes delivering Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (RMNCH) services at the primary care level operate in silos in Pakistan, which makes it difficult to monitor progress of health indicators. Reliance on paper-based reporting due to the absence of a comprehensive, digital integrated system for health data results in a lack of interoperability, communication, coordination and integration of data between programmes.
“Hayat has been integral in bridging the gap between the Lady Health Worker (LHW) Programme and the Expanded Programme in Immunization (EPI), by enabling LHWs to instantaneously report child birth through Hayat, allowing vaccinators to receive real-time information and ensure timely vaccination,” said Saleem Sayani, Project Lead, Aga Khan University.
“Hayat’s interoperable system allows convenient information sharing, prevents data duplication, reduces the burden of manually exchanging patient information while amplifying impact through cross-entity collaboration,” Saleem further added.
Since its launch in 2019, the app has registered over 441,000 beneficiaries, conducting an impressive 192,000 educational awareness sessions. With over 1,200 workers currently using the app, Hayat makes healthcare accessible in the most remote and rural regions of Pakistan. Last year, the mobile application was recognized for its novelty and innovativeness at the international Commonwealth Digital Health Awards (CWDHA).
The winning entry was chosen from over 800 entries, judged by a panel of renowned experts in digital health media. Other winners include Merck, Baylor College of Medicine and WebMD. In 2023, the awards competition celebrated its 25th anniversary.