What is the name of your organization?
Village Health Works
What is the name of your solution?
VHW: CHW Data Integration
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
A mobile-enabled system that empowers CHWs in rural Burundi to deliver care and exchange real-time data with clinics and hospitals.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Kigutu, Kirungu, Burundi
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Burundi
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
In rural Burundi, where 9 in 10 people live below the poverty line, community health workers (CHWs) are the primary link to health care for remote populations. However, CHWs face systemic challenges: lack of access to timely, quality data and weak integration with health facilities. At Village Health Works (VHW), CHWs serve more than 250,000 people, yet they collect data using paper forms, leading to delays, inaccuracies, and missed opportunities for care coordination and public health response.
This problem reflects a wider global issue: over 400,000 CHWs across sub-Saharan Africa lack adequate tools for real-time data capture and decision-making. Without digital systems, national health strategies are undermined by fragmented, delayed, or incomplete information, weakening disease surveillance, maternal and child health follow-up, and outbreak response.
Moreover, for patients in Kigutu and surrounding areas, barriers such as distance, cost, and stigma prevent timely care-seeking. CHWs can bridge this gap—but only if empowered with the tools to do so effectively.
We aim to address this by digitising CHW workflows through mobile technology, improving data quality and access to care. Our solution targets the twin challenges of poor community access and limited health system responsiveness due to delayed, low-quality data from frontline health workers.
What is your solution?
Our solution is an innovative rollout of a mobile data collection application that equips Village Health Works (VHW)’s community health workers (CHWs) with real-time, offline-capable tools to support patient care and strengthen system integration. The app enables CHWs to conduct guided diagnoses, track patient visits with GPS, and enter structured data—even without internet. Once synced, data feeds into VHW’s central system, linking CHWs with our outpatient clinic and teaching hospital, which serve the same catchment area.
For the first time at VHW, CHW-generated data will be integrated into individual medical records, allowing clinicians to view community-level information and tailor follow-up care. Medical staff can also assign home-based follow-up directly to CHWs, closing the feedback loop and improving continuity of care.
Unlike siloed CHW programs, VHW operates a unified system where CHWs, clinicians, and hospital teams work collaboratively. This ensures that CHW activities are clinically supported and actionable.
By bridging the gap between community and facility-based care, the solution enhances diagnosis, strengthens referrals, and enables faster responses to health issues in rural Burundi. Digitising CHW workflows and linking them with our clinical system sets a new standard for primary care integration in low-resource settings.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our solution directly serves underserved populations in southern Bururi Province, Burundi—one of the most rural and impoverished regions in the country. Most residents live in extreme poverty and face major geographic barriers to accessing health care. Reaching the Village Health Works (VHW) clinic or hospital often requires walking for several hours across mountainous terrain, with no access to transport.
Community health workers (CHWs) are often the first and only point of care for remote households. Yet they too face major obstacles, including long travel times, limited diagnostic tools, and inadequate systems for tracking care or making referrals. In areas with no doctors, CHWs deliver front-line care, monitor vulnerable patients, and provide essential follow-up.
Our solution equips CHWs with a mobile application that enhances diagnosis, care coordination, and communication with VHW’s clinical team. The app enables remote tracking, streamlines referrals, and supports consistent follow-up care.
This is a transformative intervention for families who would otherwise remain disconnected from regular health services. It strengthens system-wide responsiveness, allowing clinical staff to delegate home-based care and access community-level data. In doing so, it ensures even the most isolated households are linked to high-quality, timely care through an integrated, digitally enabled CHW network.
