Innovations in Maternal Health: Case Studies from India

Innovations in Maternal Health presents a compilation of twenty-three innovations from the area of Maternal and Newborn Health. These innovations have been written in the case-study style for teaching, which will be beneficial for capacity building initiatives for health-care professionals. These descriptive cases cover innovative programmes, initiatives and technologies implemented in India. Each case is complemented by a documentary film provided in the accompanying DVD. 

The book takes us on a boat ride through the rarely travelled riverine areas of the Majuli Islands of Assam and the Sunderbans in West Bengal to the state of Tamil Nadu, which is known for its constant endeavours to improve its health-care system, considered one of the best in the country. Technological innovations to address hypothermia in newborns and buy time in cases of postpartum haemorrhage in low-resource settings have been documented in detail. 

The book hopes to encourage readers to analytically view the need for innovations, critically analyse their success and challenges and the need for information sharing for better utilization of existing knowledge. 

Jay Satia is a Senior Advisor to the President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), New Delhi, and Professor Emeritus at the Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), Gujarat. He was a Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) for more than 20 years and served as its Dean during 1987–89. At IIM-A, he worked on operations management as well as on management of health, population and nutrition programmes. During the period 1993–2008, Professor Satia was the Executive Director of the International Council on Management of Population Programmes (ICOMP), a Malaysia-based international non-governmental organisation (NGO) dedicated to seeking excellence in management of population programmes. He has several publications to his credit, including his co-edited book titled Innovations in Maternal Health: Case Studies from India published by SAGE Publications in 2014.

Madhavi Misra is currently Research Scientist and Adjunct Assistant Professor at PHFI. She is a trained social worker and completed her Masters in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. She has also completed her Masters of Public Health from University of Warwick in the UK. Additionally, Misra has completed a certificate course in Tobacco Control from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a certificate course in Global Health Diplomacy from Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

She is a public health professional with work experience of more than seven years in the field of maternal and child health. She has had experience of working with the marginalized population of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and has conducted large baseline study on maternal and child health, nutrition, communicable diseases and health systems.

Radhika Arora is presently enrolled in the Master of Public Health Programme at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp. She is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Delhi, where she earned a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Economics, Financing and Policy. She has previously worked at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) towards developing audio-visual case studies on innovative programmes in the area of maternal and child health being implemented in India. Before joining PHFI, Arora worked as a features writer with Outlook Traveller and Time Out, Delhi. She has a Masters in Broadcast Journalism and almost six years of experience in both print and broadcast journalism, as well as development communications. She has worked with NDTV and CARE India. Her interest in public health, developed after she worked, briefly at Delhi-based public relations firm, Imprimis PR, which specialized in health communications. Her present work assignment at PHFI allows her to apply her past work experience in broadcast journalism to health.

Sourav Neogi is working with Ernst & Young in the Development Advisory Services. He is a postgraduate in Health and Hospital Management from Indian Institute of Health Management and Research, Jaipur. He is currently working with Ernst & Young Pvt. Ltd as a consultant in the Development Advisory Group.

His prior work experience includes project on ‘Developing Case Studies of Innovations in Public Health for Competency Strengthening and Advocacy’ at Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) as a research associate for 2.5 years. Neogi also worked with Action Research and Training for Health (ARTH), Udaipur as programme manager and the public health team in Medica Synergie Pvt. Ltd. He worked as an independent consultant to support State Health Society, Bihar for Preparation of State Programme Implementation Plan (PIP) under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) for the year 2008–09.

He has seven years of experience in the health sector and his understanding of the development sector has enabled him to gain experience in areas such as health system strengthening, documenting innovative initiatives, microfinance, reproductive child health, preparation of health action plans, biomedical waste management and hospital acquired infection. Neogi worked with the grassroots level NGOs, for-profit organizations, government and international donor agencies.