Hayat is a mHealth innovation, which aims to empower frontline health workers with digital health technologies in efforts to increase coverage of and access to routine immunisation, maternal, new-born and child care (MNCH) and child growth services in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Led by Saleem Sayani, Director, AKDN dHRC, it is a CAD 2 million, transition-to-scale innovation grant funded by the Grand Challenges Canada and the Aga Khan Foundation Canada.

Hayat, meaning life in Urdu and Dari, consists of a novel, digital health mobile application and web portal, that has successfully been implemented in select regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan in collaboration with the Aga Khan Health Service in Afghanistan and Pakistan; the government health departments in Pakistan and the Ministry of Public Health, Afghanistan. Hayat builds upon the learnings of Teeko, a successful pilot project led by Dr Shehla Zaidi, Associate Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, Aga Khan University.

With its launch in November 2018, Hayat picked up pace with several stakeholder meetings to ensure government and stakeholder engagement and buy-in from project launch. Thereafter, AKDN dHRC designed and developed the Hayat mobile application. Two separate mobile application versions and web portals were developed for each country in the local languages and designed considering health system requirements specific to each country, stakeholder feedback and behaviour change communication and gender equality themes. Implementation teams have successfully rolled-out the application in the field in both countries and performance is currently being monitored.

The Hayat mobile application allows community health workers to log details of the services provided during the field visits, track patients and raise awareness in the field, while the web portal enables health care supervisors and government officials to access essential information in real-time and conveniently track and monitor field activities and health workers, improving transparency and accountability. Hayat aims to provide an overall improved governance structure to stakeholders.