Digitalization of home-based records for maternal, newborn, and child health: a scoping review

Abstract

At least 163 countries use a form of home-based record, a document to record health information kept at home. These are predominantly paper-based, although some countries are digitalizing home-based records for improved access and use. This scoping review aimed to identify efforts already undertaken for the digitalization of home-based records for maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) and lessons learned moving forward, by mapping the available peer-reviewed and grey literature. The scoping review was guided by Arskey and O’Malley’s framework. A literature search of references published from 2000 until 2021 was conducted in Medline, Embase, CINAHL, EBM reviews, Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore as well as a grey literature search. Title and abstract and full texts were screened in Covidence. A final data extraction sheet was generated in Excel. The scoping review includes 107 references that cover 120 unique digital interventions. Most of the included references are peer-reviewed articles in English language published after 2015. Of the 120 unique digital interventions, 80 (66.7%) are used in 31 different countries and 40 (33.3%) are globally available pregnancy applications. Out of the 80 digitalization efforts from countries, most are concentrated in high-income countries (n=68, 85%). Maternal health (n=73; 61%) and child health (n=60; 50%) are the main health domains covered; the main users are pregnant women (n=57; 48%) and parents/caregivers (n=43; 36%). Most digital home-based records for MNCH are centered in high-income countries and revolve around pregnancy applications or portals for home access to health records covering MNCH. Lessons learned indicate that the success of digital home-based records correlates with the usability of the intervention, digital literacy, language skills, ownership of required digital devices, and reliable electricity and internet access. The digitalization of home-based records needs to be considered together with digitizing patient health records.