Enabel’s Health intervention, in partnership with Rwanda’s Ministry of Health, is providing ultrasound machines to Health Centers as well as tablets for timely and digital reporting.

Since July 2021, Enabel provided 83 ultrasound machines to Health Centers in two of the districts of intervention, namely Karongi and Rusizi in Rwanda’s Western Province, and trained midwives on the use of the ultrasounds.

The move aims to support Rwanda’s Ministry of Health to adopt the World Health Organization’s recommendation for all pregnant women to receive one ultrasound scan during the Antenatal Care Service and before 24 weeks to estimate gestational age, improve early detection of anomalies and improve pregnancy experience.

Training sessions on the use of ultrasound machines were organized in collaboration with Obstetric / Gynecologists and Sonographers/Medical imaging officers from referral hospitals and continue face-to-face support to the midwives to improve their skills at health center.

Providing Ultrasound services at the Health Center is an innovative approach in Rwanda. As such, and as expected, some teething problems have been reported. These include failure to collect timely and accurate information on the ultrasound service to the pregnant women.
This, in turn, has led to incomplete and/or delayed information on the ultrasound services. The key reason for this is that the routine health information system does not collect specific information on ultrasound services.
It is in this context that Enabel, through Barame project, designed, produced and provided a user-friendly digital tool for Health Centre practitioners to collect, analyze, report and visualize data generated during the ultrasound scanning, through dashboard.
Indeed, reliable data of the pregnant women is highly needed and can be remotely monitored for evidence-based decision making.
Furthermore, this new strategy itself should be evaluated to identify the usefulness, and potential weaknesses and challenges that will require improvement before scaling up to more districts and health centers. 

Health care providers from Karongi and Rusizi District Health Centers, ahve already been trained on the digital tool. Such training sessions will be provided to all Health Centers in all districts of intervention after having provided them with ultrasound machines, thus equipping them with  knowledge on the use of this new technology.

In total, 131 ultrasound machines are planned to be provided to 131 Health Centers from seven districts of Barame intervention. The same Health Centers will be provided with tablets to use the ultrasound reporting tool.    

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