We're proud to share early results from our HealthNavi Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) pilot — and they're encouraging. Health workers using HealthNavi achieved 95%+ adherence to clinical guidelines and a measurable reduction in unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions across the pilot facilities.
For a system built specifically for low-resource settings — where the gap between best practice and bedside reality is widest — these results matter. They suggest that decision support, done right, can meaningfully change how care is delivered without asking clinicians to work any harder.
The headline numbers
- 95%+ adherence to clinical guidelines among health workers using HealthNavi during patient encounters
- Measurable reduction in unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions for under-5s presenting with respiratory symptoms
- High clinician acceptance — staff reported the tool fit naturally into their existing workflow rather than slowing them down
For context, observational studies in primary-care settings across Burundi, the DRC and Nigeria have found baseline guideline compliance as low as 51%. A near-doubling on that baseline is the kind of shift that translates directly into better outcomes for patients — and slower growth of antimicrobial resistance.
"HealthNavi gave my team a second opinion in their pocket. We're prescribing more carefully and our junior clinicians are learning faster."
How the pilot was designed
The pilot was structured to test HealthNavi in real conditions, not lab conditions:
- Deployed across multiple frontline facilities serving paediatric outpatients
- Used by nurses, clinical officers and physicians side-by-side — the same mix the production system will face
- Measured adherence against published national and WHO childhood-illness guidelines
- Tracked antibiotic prescribing patterns before and during the intervention
Crucially, HealthNavi was designed to be offline-first — meaning the system works even when connectivity drops — and to surface guidance the moment it's clinically useful, rather than asking clinicians to navigate menus mid-consultation.
Why this matters for antibiotic stewardship
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the great global-health threats of the next two decades. In many sub-Saharan African countries, more than half of children with acute respiratory illness receive antibiotics — often when they aren't indicated. Every unnecessary prescription is a contribution to AMR, and the burden of resistance falls hardest on the same low-resource settings that can least afford it.
A decision-support tool that helps clinicians prescribe more confidently — to give antibiotics where they're needed and withhold them where they aren't — is one of the highest-leverage interventions available. The HealthNavi pilot shows this is achievable at the point of care.
What's next
With pilot results in hand, MamaOpe is moving toward:
- A larger multi-site validation study to confirm the early findings at scale
- Deeper integration between HealthNavi and the MamaOpe Smart Auscultation Device
- Working with public health systems and NGO partners to deploy HealthNavi in additional facilities across East Africa
- Publishing the full methodology and dataset so the broader global-health community can build on it
If you work in clinical practice, health-system leadership, regulation or impact investment — and you'd like to engage with our results — we'd love to talk.
For research, partnership or media enquiries, please contact hello@mamaope.com.