• Now in its ninth year, the NDoH has partnered with Reach Digital Health and Ada Health on intelligent symptom assessments for MomConnect.
• The Mobile Maternal Health platform aims to give mothers prenatal and post-natal information via smartphones.
• The new assessments are driven by AI-based questions, after which, a mother is guided to the most suitable services and support.

For those who may not have known, the beginning of August marked World Breastfeeding Week, and to mark the occasion the National Department of Health (NDoH) recently held an event to announce the integration of new symptom assessment technology for its MomConnect platform.

MomConnect is a Mobile Maternal Health platform that aims to provide South African mothers with access to prenatal and post-natal information, as well as access to critical services and resources via their smartphones.

Now in its ninth year, the NDoH has collaborated with with Reach Digital Health (formerly Praekelt.org), and Ada Health to integrate the latter’s intelligent symptom-assessment technology.

“MomConnect now offers users an accurate, accessible symptom-checking service. Provided by Ada Health, the technology will further enable women and mothers to better understand their healthcare needs and care options, and has the potential to reach as many as 1 million active MomConnect users across South Africa, with wider integration possibilities in South Africa and other countries,” explained Reach Digital Health in a press release sent to Hypertext.

“Integrating Ada’s AI-powered symptom assessment technology into the existing MomConnect platform will further help to address these issues. MomConnect users can now better understand their symptoms by answering a series of questions based on validated AI protocols in the system, and based on their responses, will be navigated to appropriate and available human-centred services and support,” it added.

The new service can be accessed by users via the MomConnect HelpDesk available on WhatsApp. You will need to register for the platform by dialling *134*550# from your phone.

It is also worth pointing out that your pregnancy will be registered on a national database, should you choose to sign up for MomConnect.

[Image – Photo by Aditya Romansa on Unsplash]