Connecting the Dots in Nutritional Rehabilitation: A Qualitative Study on ICT and Community Based Care

Abstract: 'Fragmentation in care' continuum is often considered as a shortcoming of Health system whereas, 'Integration of care' is widely acclaimed as a viable solution to fragmentation. In last two decades, Information and communication technologies (ICTs), by virtue of their ability to integrate information for action, has been extensively used in addressing many public health problems like malnutrition. Tackling the public health challenge of malnutrition demands attention to interconnectedness and interactions between multiple systems. In this paper, using a case study of an ICT application used by community workers for malnutrition management in Karnataka, we argue that lack of recognition of interconnectedness and interactions among stakeholders and context can pose a challenge to integration of care. ICTs can be key enablers to overcome fragmentation, provided it recognizes the inherent complexities of malnutrition and its management. We argue that for an effective ICT enabled integration of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) management, a thorough understanding of perspectives of multiple stakeholders together with rich picture of the contextual dynamics should not be ignored at design and implementation phase.