CASE STUDY
When Dr Hugo Tempelman arrived in the South African province of Limpopo in 1994 , he had a burning desire to use his medical skills to improve the health and life prospects of local people in its many remote , rural communities . It was a challenge on an epic scale , in a region with few doctors and little medical infrastructure . Undeterred , he remortgaged his own home , bought 60,000 bricks , and built his own clinic .
Now nonprofit , Ndlovu Care Group ’ s health , water infrastructure , and community programmes transform the lives of countless people , helping children to grow up free from the life limiting effects of disease and malnutrition .
A child ’ s first one-thousand days are the most important of its life , establishing foundations for healthy growth and development . But in isolated communities in South Africa , malnourishment and lack of essential minerals and vitamins continue to cause neurodevelopmental disadvantages and health problems , reducing energy levels and interest in learning .
One in five South African children grow up with the effects of malnourishment and a lack of food security , and many who reach adulthood have reduced life expectancy . Tackling the root causes of these problems has been a top priority for Ndlovu Care Group for more than 25 years .
“ Treating a sick child can work in the short-term , but unless we address the underlying causes , they will continue to get sick ,” explains Hugo Tempelman , CEO of Ndlovu Care Group . “ We needed to reach out to families and communities in remote villages , gain their confidence , and work with them to improve their situation for the long term . So , we set up five Nutritional Units and went to work .”
Over the years Ndlovu Care and its teams of healthcare workers have delivered across-the-board improvements in a region that is home to 140,000 people , through health education , access to clean water , better sanitation and hygiene , and support for local people to grow and cook more nutritious food .
Operational challenges
For its healthcare workers , all drawn from within the communities they serve , the vital task of capturing the health data of thousands of children , to enable assessment , diagnosis , and treatment , and to track progress , was slow and time consuming . Notes were handwritten on paper and manually transferred to paper-based systems back at the clinic .
Community Healthcare Worker , Debbie Ditshego , has been supporting children and families in Limpopo since 1998 . “ When I began working for Ndlovu Care we had many severely malnourished children out in remote communities . But through education , raising awareness , and delivering support and encouragement the situation has been steadily improving . Using paper created a huge workload for everyone .”
ServiceNow and its Elite Partner , FlyForm , came together to work with Ndlovu Care to understand how its Nutritional Unit teams operate in the field , the data they needed to capture , the challenges created working in areas without Internet connectivity , the need for data security , and their familiarity with technology . These insights enabled ServiceNow and FlyForm to harness the Now Platform to build a simplified digital experience for the Ndlovu Care team .
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