Care Companion Programme for Maternal and Newborn Health (Madhya Pradesh)

Programme Description

CCP aims to empower families to adopt healthy behaviors when they spend time in healthcare settings. As families gather at facilities, this is an effective form of activating the practice healthy behaviors at a time they need it most. By teaching family caregivers high-impact skills, the Programme helps in reducing preventable post-discharge complications. At present, the CCP focuses on Maternal and Newborn Health and has been implemented across all 51 District Hospitals in MP. CCP trainers (nurses and counsellors) conduct regular, structured sessions in ANC OPD, PNC wards, postop wards, and SNCU wards. The staff conducting the trainings were trained through a rigorous curriculum to become engaging health educators for low literacy populations. Flipcharts, videos, and handouts (prepared by medical and creative experts) are used by the staff to conduct sessions. The training targets not only the mothers - but the fathers, grandmothers and other relatives within facility as they are key influencers of health behaviors. The family caregivers are also able to opt in to receive health messages and videos on WhatsApp after they return home - simple health queries are also answered with this service. From March 2019 to September 2019, over 66,000 caregivers have been trained in the State.

Scalability

The CCP is a simple yet effective programme with a broad impact on health systems, providers, and of course patients. Previous evaluations of the CCP show a significant increase in practice of key healthy behaviors (i.e. KMC by 84%), a 57% decrease in post-discharge neonatal hospital readmissions, and a 24% decrease in post discharge neonatal complications. Staff find the training in groups in a standard format to be efficient, saving them time overall by answering most of the mothers and families questions during the session. The programme has a vast potential for scale to other medical condition areas and facilities.

Implementation Partners

Care Companion Programme (CCP) is a Madhya Pradesh State initiative, implemented by NHM-MP, in partnership with YosAid Foundation. The programme was originally conceptualized by Noora Health.

Financial Implications

No information provided.

Source : We Care Coffee Table Book - Good, Replicable and Innovative Practices 2019