Abstract
Background The reduction and control over neonatal, infant, and maternal mortality is a collective
mission of the World Health Organization under United Nations.
Methods This article summarizes the automation of verbal autopsy reporting for neonatal,
infant, and maternal mortality with primary focus on user-centered design for technologically
illiterate workforce with minimum available resources. The diminution in neonatal,
infant, and maternal deaths is not possible until grassroot level quality data are
available for mortality. The estimated data are less effective for developing countries
like Pakistan because it has heterogeneous demographic pockets with respect to mortality
causes. The Neonatal, Infant, and Maternal Death E-surveillance System is a project
in which a real-time reporting system is innovated that is useful in detecting the
causes of mortality and effective in adopting appropriate countermeasure policies.
In a pilot study, the system was implemented initially in nine districts of Punjab,
Pakistan. The initial system was refined after getting detailed feedback from district
management staff including Lady Health Workers and Lady Health Supervisors. The refined
surveillance system was finally implemented in all 36 districts of Punjab, Pakistan.
Results The results exhibited 31% improvement in infant data collection and 6% improvement
in maternal data collection regarding mortality.
Conclusion This research will be helpful in achieving the milestone of gathering real-time mortality
data from grassroot level using user-centered design methodology.
Keywords
human–computer interaction - user-centered design - interfaces and usability - technologically
illiterate workforce - verbal autopsy data collection
