Problem Statement: COVID-19 has caused a setback in achieving the maternal mortality target established in the Sustainable Development Goals. Women’s empowerment is an internationally supported human-rights policy to improve maternity care and decrease maternal mortality. We aimed to find an integrated solution to encourage women’s participation and provide an integral evaluation for maternity care in Mexico. The use of outcomes measurement for a sound evaluation arose in the very first steps of the project.

Description: Three major objectives were pursued: conceptualization, testing, and local adaptation. For conceptualization, an interdisciplinary research was conducted and a prototype designed. For testing, focus groups and interviews were done to women, health professionals, and public health leaders. For local adaptation, the International Consortium of Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) Set for Pregnancy And Childbirth was translated from English to Spanish. 29 social workers, health professionals and administrative staff interviewed 358 women attending 2 public hospitals and 1 clinic in Guerrero, Mexico. Finally, a pilot of the integrated App was done in Puebla with 147 women and a behavioral economics analysis was done in Mexico City with 26 participating women.

Lessons Learned: Decreasing preventable maternal deaths require the participation of all healthcare stakeholders: women, health professionals, social workers, community leaders, non-governmental and international organizations, and public health authorities.

This research had certain challenges and limitations. The main challenges were: institutional change, low literacy levels, connectivity, and COVID-19 restrictions

The use of outcome measurements is key to evaluate the quality of maternity care, but it is not sufficient to empower women in low resource settings. An efficient and integrated mHealth solution to evaluate maternity care should empower women by improving their skills for self-care during pregnancy and postpartum while ensuring their participation in the evaluation of maternity care programs with adequate support.

Stakeholder perspective: Provider