Healthcare systems integration boosts treatment quality & outcomes
How MiracleFeet uses data integration and automation to improve clubfoot treatment for children worldwide.
The following was written by Aleksa Krolls, a contributor at Open Function, after a conversation with the MiracleFeet mHealth team.
Our partner, MiracleFeet, is a global health organization leveraging technology to improve treatment quality and outcomes for children born with clubfoot in low- and middle-income countries. Clubfoot is one of the most common birth defects in the world — affecting one out of every 800 children worldwide. MiracleFeet aims to combat these odds and increase access to clubfoot treatment through partnerships with local healthcare providers, offering organizational, technical, and financial support to clinics in 26 different countries.
New data solutions for clubfoot treatment
In 2016, MiracleFeet was awarded a $1M Impact Challenge Grant from Google.org to implement healthcare technology to creatively address areas of clubfoot treatment in need of improvement. MiracleFeet has since been working with teams at Dimagi to develop a mobile-based data collection system called CAST, built on the CommCare platform. The CAST mobile app allows healthcare workers to quickly view and collect patient information both online and offline — providing access to important information while in the field, and allowing for better patient management throughout their treatment.
How to quickly aggregate and analyze data collected in the field?
In addition to CAST, MiracleFeet has developed tools to compare and analyze the data collected in order to inform decision-making on how to improve clubfoot treatment. MiracleFeet determined that it could use Salesforce to aggregate, analyze, and share the data collected via CAST, but it didn’t have a way to automatically connect data between the CommCare-based mobile app and the Salesforce database. Key goals of the CAST implementation were to reduce unnecessary data entry work for staff members, and to reduce the lag times between when patient information was collected and when it could be analyzed — so then how to integrate its CommCare and Salesforce data systems?
Using Open Function to automate information sharing
With the OpenFn integration platform, MiracleFeet was able to connect its data systems to automatically send information collected via the CommCare mobile app to its central Salesforce database — relaying data from field-based health workers to program staff and clinic providers in real-time. This OpenFn-powered integrated solution allows MiracleFeet to:
- Aggregate information collected via mobile across clinics in one central database
- Access and analyze information collected in the field in near real-time
- Share data analyses and key metrics with other MiracleFeet staff, clubfoot partner organizations, and other external stakeholders
- Easily scale and expand its CAST rollout to other countries, by supporting easy setup of additional CommCare-to-Salesforce connections using OpenFn
MiracleFeet kicked off its global rollout of its CAST application last year, and will have implemented CAST to support clubfoot treatment in 180+ clinics across 26 countries by April 2019. As MiracleFeet expands its deployment of CAST to additional countries, OpenFn will continue to seamlessly funnel data from CommCare to Salesforce — allowing MiracleFeet to analyze clubfoot treatment quality and outcomes more quickly. MiracleFeet can also easily adjust and expand its OpenFn integration to match new versions of CAST as the design of the solution evolves according to the needs of its partner healthcare providers.
More time to focus on what the data means
As the global CAST rollout progresses, MiracleFeet continues to be recognized for its creative approach to improving healthcare delivery using technology. Most recently, MiracleFeet was selected as a member of the Innovations in Healthcare 2019 Innovators Cohort for its global mission to expand healthcare delivery and access to children born with clubfoot.
We at Open Function are proud to power the integration behind MiracleFeet’s cutting-edge clubfoot treatment data system. With OpenFn, MiracleFeet can now spend less time thinking about how to manage all of the data it’s now collecting — and can instead focus on what the data means and how to improve health outcomes for children worldwide.
MiracleFeet has also made their OpenFn jobs open source and publicly available on their Github repository. All platform data remains secure and confidential, but they’re sharing their job expressions with the world in the hopes that it will help others come up with interesting integrations and ways to connect CommCare data.
