Records for Life:
Global Health Records

Acknowledgment

Honorable Mention Recipient and Top Ten Finalist in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Records for Life Contest

Background

In 2014, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Records for Life Contest to task the global design community with reimagining and redesigning child health records in both analog and digital forms. Based on the foundation's research, immunization forms in many countries did not serve it's function properly which lead to inaccurate information, loss of information, and lack of perceived value leading to incomplete records.

At MICA, participation in this contest was part of our graduate studio. We created teams based on areas of interest during a workshop lead by Islam Elsedoudi of IDEO. Our group included Amanda Buck, Sally Maier, Chen Yu, and myself. Along with Mr. Elsedoudi, each group had access to Doug Storey and Manish Arora of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Lee Davis of MICA's Social Design Program. Our advisor, Jennifer Cole Phillips was also involved in pushing us forward each week.

Statement

From our submission materials: Our proposal is a clear, adaptable, portable, durable, and valuable solution for both health workers and caregivers. With optical mark recognition, the form simplifies record keeping and allows for easy reproduction and digitization, adding scalability and redundancy in the medical data system. An initial cover photograph adds value to the record, and the promise of a final photograph creates an incentive towards completion of the vaccination cycle. Plus, when technology is available, text-message based reminders and information can help encourage family compliance and vaccination comprehension.