The Jacaranda Health Blog

Celebrating Mothers

Grace Lesser — Sun, 12 May 2013 16:49:21 +0000

Today is Mother’s Day. In honor of this special day, this week Save the Children released their 14th annual State of the World’s Mother report, which rates the best and worst places to give birth. Kenya came in 156th out of the 176 countries. If you’re reading this, chances are you know what this report …

Where Respectful Maternity Care Begins

Becky Auerbach — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:56:29 +0000

As featured on Maternal Health Task Force blog on April 8, 2013. At Jacaranda Health, we are working to build a model of maternity care that is more respectful and mother-centered. In a health system where respect is not the norm, its contribution to quality of care cannot be understated. Respectful care for us has two …

Jacaranda Health and partner Population Council featured on BBC

Allison Ettenger — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:12:48 +0000

We were excited to see Jacaranda’s maternity in Ruiru on the BBC. In a story entitled “Can a phone replace the doctor in Kenya?”, BBC Click featured Baby Monitor, a project run by Population Council and carried out in partnership with Jacaranda’s nurses and maternity. Baby Monitor is a mHealth innovation seeking to connect pregnant women …

First Baby Delivered!

Mick Emmett — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:50:40 +0000

On its first official day of being open for deliveries our maternity clinic delivered its first baby! A beautiful baby girl was born on Sunday afternoon to a woman who started ANC with us in our Mwiki mobile clinic. Two of our nurses, our clinical director, and several clinical and support staff were present and …

Pre-opening Community Event at Our Maternity Clinic

Mick Emmett — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:42:42 +0000

Thursday, August 16 was an important day for Jacaranda Health – it was also a lot of fun. To celebrate the opening of our maternity clinic for deliveries on Sunday, August 19, we held an open house at the clinic for existing clients, new clients, community members, our staff and many, many energetic children. In …

Jacaranda’s team and our new maternity hospital!

Nick Pearson — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 18:11:00 +0000

Here is a picture of the Jacaranda Health team in front of our first maternity hospital! We are all thrilled to begin serving patients tomorrow in Ruiru, on the outskirts of Nairobi. Jacaranda provides high-quality maternity care to women in Kenya and our mission is to make maternal and infant mortality a problem of the …

Jacaranda receives Health Market Innovations Award in Kampala

Nick Pearson — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:11:33 +0000

Last week, Jacaranda Health won an important recognition in the first East African Health Market Innovations Awards. Jacaranda was identified among several hundred programs as the Most Promising Health Market Innovation in the category of “Organizing Delivery”, which recognizes “programs that reduce fragmentation and informality of health care delivery”. The awards event was funded by …

Patient-centered design: Maternity care designed by women, for women

Nick Pearson — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:00:02 +0000

Imagine waiting for six hours for antenatal visit, only to be seen by a nurse who doesn’t have time to answer questions about your pregnancy, or doesn’t bother to treat you with respect. A recent Kenyan government survey indicated that bad patient experience is one of the major reasons that women in Kenya avoid giving …

Medical records and mobile phones for maternal health

Jacaranda Health — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 11:20:22 +0000

As an organization dedicated to providing great care while being financially sustainable, Jacaranda Health is a strong proponent of automated health management information systems and electronic medical records (EMR), so called ‘eHealth’ systems. A good eHealth system will help us keep rigorous track of our time management, our inventory management, our money management – and, …

A baseline for better maternal health

Danae Roumis, Harvard School of Public Health — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:26:08 +0000

To improve the standard of maternal healthcare, we need to be able to measure the changes we aim to create. Jacaranda believes that measuring impact is critical to success. To integrate monitoring and evaluation (M&E) into their model, they have partnered with researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health to form an evaluation team. …