Using technology to improve access to healthcare: The case of the MomConnect programme in South Africa

Abstract

A major area of inequality may be seen in the healthcare sector where systematic exclusion from access to services exists due to poverty, lack of employment, and poor infrastructure, transport systems and other social factors. In this article, we draw on two complementary frameworks: (i) Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) and (ii) Platform-based Innovation Ecosystems (PIE) to explore the need for the orchestration between macro-level policies and micro-level connections among platform actors as crucial for large-scale e-health/m-health programmes to succeed. We explore this empirically by using the MomConnect programme as a successful case of orchestration between the macro- and micro-level. Here the utilisation of systemic policy instruments are uncovered through which the design of large scale mHealth programmes may be supported with the aim of developing more inclusive innovation systems.