Crosscut

Our web-based solution takes freely available inputs for every country, specifically road network data, granular target population GIS data, land cover data, and elevation data and combines that data with parameters entered by the user to return valuable health campaign planning intelligence that can be produced more quickly, more accurately, more often, and at a more granular level than current approaches.

Our solution takes geocoded health centres and returns GIS ‘polygons’ for each health facility’s catchment area, essentially carving up the entire country’s geographic area into hundred meter squares and assigning each of those squares to its nearest health centre. Current approaches often use administrative boundaries and population statistics, which do not necessarily reflect where people actually go for health services. We upend this approach by using advanced algorithms to assign each grid square to its ‘nearest health centre’ creating population estimates more quickly and accurately than conventional approaches.

Efficient resource utilization: It may seem simple enough, but it is extremely difficult to know which parts of a country are being served by which health facilities and extremely difficult to know what types of persons live in those areas. Population statistics are often not disaggregated down to the health facility level, and they are often not disaggregated by the type of population (i.e. women of childbearing age, births, children under five, etc.). This information can be particularly difficult to obtain for more remote parts of a country, making Crosscut a good way to ensure supplies, funding, and services are being provided in the areas that will have the most impact on public health.

Equity: Are resources being allocated according to where the target population is located? Are groups being missed in the provision of services and supplies? Answers to these questions are often unclear because population data is typically measured at higher levels and is not aligned with where health facilities are located. Without such information, these groups can be overlooked by health systems.

Health facility catchment areas: Using only a geocoded master facility list, country stakeholders can use Crosscut to create catchment areas for each health centre in their country. Catchment areas are often used for resupply decisions, allocating resources, determining health coverage, and other public health purposes. 

Equity mapping: Not all land supposedly covered by a health centre has equal access to that health centre. Once site catchments are created, a country stakeholder can use Crosscut to calculate and overlay a heat map that lights up those areas that have large amounts of target population that are far from health centres. 

Campaign microplan territories: Using Crosscut, a user can further sub-divide the health facility catchment areas into health campaign microplan territories, each sized by what can realistically be addressed by a campaign team in the allotted time. The microplan territories are created using advanced geospatial algorithms that form contiguous territories that can be efficiently served by campaign teams.

Campaign resource calculator: Crosscut uses these microplan areas, each with an estimated target population, to auto-generate the resources needed at the national, health centre, and microplan level using the campaign parameters entered by the user. 

Our platform currently provides disaggregated, geographic-based insights on live births, children under one, children under five, and women of child-bearing age. We make the data that users need available in our platform or any other platform of their choosing: the Crosscut solution is meant to support existing technology that countries use to administer health services (such as DHIS2). We are committed to users and are passionate about creating something that meets real challenges they are facing.

Improved accessibility is at the heart of the Crosscut solution. We provide more accurate estimates of women of childbearing age, newborns, and children at the heatlh facility level than any other data source in existence. We use this data to identify areas where there are large numbers of the target population, in this case women and children, that are far from health facilities. We also use this data to assist countries to more rationally allocate supplies and services to women and children at the lowest levels of a country's geography.

We allow users to create catchment areas and campaign microplans more quickly, more accurately, more often, and at a more granular level than current approaches. We use freely available data combined and analyzed in a sophisticated way to create more accurate estimates of women and children associated with a country's health facility network. This lets us confidently say that we can offer a cost-effective yet innovative solution that is higher quality and higher granularity than any other organization or company. Most countries just use administrative boundaries and population estimates, which does not reflect where women and children actually go for health services. There is no other company offering to create catchment areas and microplans for countries: we offer this service at low-cost and at scale. We have found one other entity, AccessMod, that purports to offer some equity mapping (but no catchment area mapping), however that solution took our developer more than a day to set up and a half a day to run. In contrast, our web-based solution is user friendly, intuitive, and can run orders of magnitude faster than AccessMod with far more features and target populations available.

Available upon request

We are using widely used, proven technology that powers thousands of applications around the globe. Ultimately, the evidence that this works is that we have built it.

Current methods of creating geographic microplans and estimating the resources required to execute health campaigns are often manual and rely on outdated population statistics that are not aligned with the territories served by health facilities. This can cause misallocation of limited resources, reduced campaign coverage, and risks leaving vulnerable populations behind.

Using nothing more than the country’s master facility list and a few parameters entered by the user, Crosscut subdivides the entire country into catchment areas served by each health facility and then further subdivides the catchment areas into microplan areas served by health campaign teams. Each microplan area has precise estimates of the target population and the resources required to execute the health campaign.

We plan to make this basic service available to every country in Sub-Saharan Africa by October 2020. Interested users can then customize their campaign plans, select their target population, update their master facility list, and make other adjustments as needed. We hope to use this basic service offering to understand user needs and identify other ways to improve campaigns, after which we will roll out additional features in sprints over the coming year.

We indirectly serve country populations by providing health campaign planning technology. In-country stakeholders use the technology to improve resource allocation and reduce equity in the provision of health services. Our solution will be available in the Fall of 2020 for use by all of Sub-Saharan Africa. We have one country now (The Gambia) with 4+ expected in a year and 10+ expected in five years.

Our goal is to improve the lives of millions of persons through the increased effectiveness of health campaigns.

Available upon request

Available upon request

The Gates Foundation