mHEALTH-INNOVATE explored how healthcare workers' informal and innovative uses of mobile phone messaging apps are shaping service delivery and governance in low- and lower-middle-income countries. The four-year project (2022–2025) asked what health systems can learn from the solutions health workers already build for themselves — and how those practices can inform better digital health interventions.
Learning from what health workers already do
Health workers are increasingly using their own phones to solve everyday work challenges — often outside any formal system.
The challenge
Informal mobile phone use is widespread among health workers, but it sits largely outside official policy, governance and digital health design.
- Personal phones are used for communication, coordination and reporting
- These practices are rarely visible to planners or policy
- Their risks and benefits for service delivery are poorly understood
Our approach
Study real informal practices and translate them into evidence for stronger, more grounded digital health interventions.
- Systematic review of the global literature
- Primary research with health workers in Uganda
- An online community of practice to surface lived experience
Health workers are increasingly harnessing mobile phones to develop their own solutions to work challenges — including health worker-initiated WhatsApp groups for communication, monitoring and reporting.
How the project worked
01
Review the global evidence
Systematically review what is known about informal mobile phone use by health workers worldwide.
02
Research practice in Uganda
Study informal mobile phone practices among health workers through primary research.
03
Convene a community of practice
Use an online community of practice to explore how and why health workers use their phones.
04
Inform policy & practice
Translate findings into implications for digital health interventions, governance and service delivery.
Collaborators
University of Oslo; Western Norway University of Applied Sciences; Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway; John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA; WHO; and Makerere University (CHS, COCIS, and CHUSS).