Vaccitracker

Problem Statement  

How might we help parents plan for and remember their child’s immunisation appointments

Problem Background  

There are an estimated 350,000 births around the world everyday. Even though we all come from different cultures and geographies there are some common threads during the birth of a child. It is usually a period of celebration of new life, but at the same time it's the beginning of a new responsibility, especially for the parents. From day one the child needs to begin taking the required immunisations to protect them from diseases and to ensure proper growth and development. The parents need to remember when and what vaccines need to be taken and also to ensure they attend their immunisation appointments on schedule. This can be challenging especially for parents with busy schedules or first time parents. From the survey results linked in the appendix below more than 60% of parents said they have missed an immunisation appointment and forgetting the date was the major reason. Most parents either rely on the hospital immunisation card which can easily be misplaced or damaged, or they try to keep track with a diary. When parents forget their children’s immunisation appointment more than 60% of them have negative feelings about themselves and feel like bad parents. Research has found that these negative feelings can have a further negative impact on the health of the child.

Research Insights

Pain points and challenges identified include

1. Difficulty remembering immunisation appointments
2. Forgetting which immunisation the child has taken and needs to take
3. Little or no knowledge of updates to the immunisation requirements

Our preliminary user research to validate this problem with parents in Nigeria provided the following insights

1. More than 60% of parents surveyed confirmed that they have forgotten their child’s immunisation at least once.
2. More than 60% also reported having negative feelings over a missed appointment
3. 50% of parents reported using a diary to track immunisation appointments and 36% reported taking a mental note of the date on the immunisation card given to them at the hospital.

Landing on the Solution

Based on the results of the survey and interviews the proposed solution is a mobile app for parents to track and record the immunisation of their children. The app would have the below key features.

• real time notifications and reminders, that informs parents in advance of appointments. 
• The parent will be able to create a family profile and also add their significant partner as a Co-contributor. 
• They can add multiple children profiles including the name of the child, a profile pic, date of birth, sex etc. 
• They will also be able to fill in general data like their country of residence and address, which would inform the vaccination schedules as well as provide them with a list of recommended health centers in the vicinity. 
• The solution should also have a library of immunisations in easy to understand language with the basic information a parent should have.