Towards the Design of a Mobile Application to Support Decentralized Healthcare in Developing Countries: The Case of Diabetes Care in eSwatini

This study addresses the issue of decentralized healthcare in developing countries (e.g. in eSwatini). The country employs community health workers (CHW) to provide health care to the inhabitants. Although, relying on CHW as a solution to supply healthcare measures is a valuable mean to substitute insufficient healthcare infrastructure, certain issues arise due to lack of experience and education. For instance, caring for diabetes requires a high level of specific knowledge and expertise, which cannot necessarily be expected from CHW. To develop a potential solution for this problem, this study addresses the design of a mobile application, which supports CHW in their daily healthcare routines. The design of the mobile application is formalized in form a framework and instantiated as a prototype. The developing process followed the design science research paradigm and resulted in the formalization of the problem domain and in the development of design principles. During the research process, various experts were consulted to evaluate the design. Overall, this study provides valuable implications for theory and practice regarding the support of decentralized healthcare in developing countries.