Credit per CHW

Hello,

I'm with the Millennium Villages Project and we just started using CommCare
over the past few months. I was wondering if I could get a sense from
other organizations about how much credit per week they have been providing
each of their community health workers to use CommCare.

Thanks so much!

Regards,
Anne

Hi Anne,

I can share what organizations are doing in India. Usually the
recharge/credit amount isn't done on a weekly basis (that could become
different operationally). Credit is given to chws on a monthly basis.

During our pilot phase, organizations started off recharging as little as
Rs. 30-50, which is less than a 1 USD per month, which would be more than
enough to submit forms over a month. When you recharge 'talktime' and then
connect with GPRS, the chws can submit data through CommCare, and can also
use the balance for calls.

There were some instances where the chws used up the talktime value for
personal calls and no longer had balance to submit forms or didn't recharge
their phones in time with new balance, which resulted in GPRS being
deactivated all together. At these sites, organizations generally moved to
a data pack recharge - the plans here are Rs 98 (about 2 USD) which gives
them 1 GB of data. They didn't however give additional balance for voice
calls. We've found the chws give flash calls/missed calls anyway if they
need any support, so they don't need balance to do that.

We still have successful sites which are recharging talk time balance and
not the data pack though most of our projects use prepaid data plans. You
could consider a blended approach with data and talktime. Some
organizations keep track of talktime usage by their chws (% personal, %
professional and why).

Hope this helps! And happy to expand if useful.

Mohini

··· On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 8:29:00 PM UTC+5:30, Anne Liu wrote: > > Hello, > > I'm with the Millennium Villages Project and we just started using > CommCare over the past few months. I was wondering if I could get a sense > from other organizations about how much credit per week they have been > providing each of their community health workers to use CommCare. > > Thanks so much! > > Regards, > Anne >

Thank you for the tips Mohini! Much appreciated.

Regards,
Anne

··· On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Mohini Bhavsar wrote:

Hi Anne,

I can share what organizations are doing in India. Usually the
recharge/credit amount isn't done on a weekly basis (that could become
different operationally). Credit is given to chws on a monthly basis.

During our pilot phase, organizations started off recharging as little as
Rs. 30-50, which is less than a 1 USD per month, which would be more than
enough to submit forms over a month. When you recharge 'talktime' and then
connect with GPRS, the chws can submit data through CommCare, and can also
use the balance for calls.

There were some instances where the chws used up the talktime value for
personal calls and no longer had balance to submit forms or didn't recharge
their phones in time with new balance, which resulted in GPRS being
deactivated all together. At these sites, organizations generally moved to
a data pack recharge - the plans here are Rs 98 (about 2 USD) which gives
them 1 GB of data. They didn't however give additional balance for voice
calls. We've found the chws give flash calls/missed calls anyway if they
need any support, so they don't need balance to do that.

We still have successful sites which are recharging talk time balance and
not the data pack though most of our projects use prepaid data plans. You
could consider a blended approach with data and talktime. Some
organizations keep track of talktime usage by their chws (% personal, %
professional and why).

Hope this helps! And happy to expand if useful.

Mohini

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 8:29:00 PM UTC+5:30, Anne Liu wrote:

Hello,

I'm with the Millennium Villages Project and we just started using
CommCare over the past few months. I was wondering if I could get a sense
from other organizations about how much credit per week they have been
providing each of their community health workers to use CommCare.

Thanks so much!

Regards,
Anne

--
Anne Liu, MSPH MS
Health Systems Manager
Center for Global Health and Economic Development
Earth Institute, Columbia University
*
O: +1.212.854.5182 | C: +1.646.770.6997 | Skype: apliu02
*

http://cghed.ei.columbia.edu