Project profile — Scaling Up Maternal and Child Health in Guatemala- COVID-19 Response

• Guatemala (100.00%)

• Health policy and administrative management:
Health policy and administrative management (12110) (20.00%)
Medical services (12191) (10.00%)
• Health statistics and data:
Health statistics and data (12196) (10.00%)
COVID-19 control (12264) (20.00%)
• Basic Health: Health personnel development (12281) (40.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (significant objective)
• Nutrition (significant objective)
• ICT as a tool for development (significant objective)

The project aims to reduce maternal and child mortality by strengthening essential maternal, newbord and child health (MNCH) services in the Guatemala. Project activities include: (1) providing training and technical assistance to the Ministry of Health to develop and deploy distance education programs for health professionals and community healthcare workers; (2) providing training and technical assistance to health professional to use a community eHealth system for improving MNCH services to rural communities; (3) providing technical assistance to health authorities at the national, district and community levels to use MNCH data from community eHealth system; and (4) proving technical assistance to increase the dissemination and use of vital events data. COVID-19 response activities include: (1) establishing a real-time community surveillance system to identify COVID-19 outbreaks and cases and provide reliable data for follow-up; (2) collaborating with regional health authorities to ensure monitoring of pregnant women and malnourished children using real-time community surveillance epidemiological health system; (3) conducting training courses for personnel working at the primary, secondary and tertiary health care levels on COVID-19 protocols; (4) collaborating with the Ministry of Health on implementing their communication strategy on COVID-19 for rural Mayan-speaking communities in target departments; and (5) providing essential Personnel Protective Equipment (PPE) supply for frontline health workers. The project is expected to contribute directly the improved health of approximately two million people in the departments of Alta Verapaz, Huehuetenango, El Quiche and Sololá in Guatemala. Tula Foundation is implementing the project in collaboration with TulaSalud, McMaster University, Tigo Foundation, Alliance for Nutrition Foundation, and the Guatemalan Ministry of Health.

The expected outcomes for the project include: (1) improved delivery of essential health services to mothers, pregnant women, newborns and children under five; and (2) Increased collection, dissemination, and use of community-level maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition health data The expected outcomes for the project’s COVID-19 response include: (1) increased capacity of Ministry of Health to incorporate COVID-19 data into decision-making processes using the real-time community digital health surveillance system; (2) leverage the project’s IT infrastructure for distance training of health personnel to reduce risk of COVID-19 spread; (3) reinforce the communication system in project regions and promote the dissemination of essential prevention information to the population; and (4) access to essential Personnel Protective Equipment (PPE) for frontline health workers, minimizing risk of infection for this group of workers.

Results achieved as of the end of the project by the Tula Foundation through the support of the Government of Canada (December 2021) include: (1) contributed to the reduction of maternal mortality rate by an average of 23% in Alta Verapaz, El Quiché, Huehuetenango and Sololá; (2) reduced the number of deaths of children under the age of five by an average of 71% in target regions; (3) 29,637 health personnel and community health workers (16,989 women and 12,648 men, including 19,621 Indigenous persons) completed distance education programs to address maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition; (4) provided training for 4,981 community health workers and health personnel participants (2,775 women and 2,206 men) in Alta Verapaz, El Quiché, Huehuetenango, and Sololá and smartphone equipment to enhance their capacity to use a community eHealth system to improve the delivery of maternal, newborn and child health, nutrition health and COVID-19 services. This resulted in the registration of more than 1.8M calls for clinical support such as transport, follow-up, consultation and coordination; (5) contributed to an increased collection, dissemination and use of community-level maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition health data. Since the beginning of the project; (6) 7,694 health officials, health personnel and community health workers (4,301 women and 3,393 men) accessed community health information for decision-making support via the community eHealth system; and (7) coordinated with the Ministry of Health in 2020 to update the eHealth system to allow users to register COVID-19 cases for monitoring, follow-up and resources planning. This improved the time required to access information. The average transfer time between collection and accessibility of health data by the community eHealth system records at approximately 21 minutes; significantly better than the project target of 24 hours.

• Proactive disclosure