The PartoPen in practice: evaluating the impact of digital pen technology on maternal health in Kenya

This paper critically examines the use of digital pen technology at two key points in the healthcare system in Kenya: nursing student training and patient care in public labor wards. The PartoPen system -- a digital pen software designed to enhance the paper labor monitoring tool known as the partograph -- was evaluated with 95 nursing students at the University of Nairobi (UoN), and with 50 nurses in the labor ward at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). Students using the PartoPen had significantly higher scores on partograph worksheets than students using a silent PartoPen, especially on challenging and high-risk labor cases and on difficult sections of the partograph. In the maternity ward study, nurses unanimously reported positive improvements in the number of partographs they were able to complete, but these qualitative responses were not supported by the quantitative data. We discuss the results of both studies, and what these results suggest about the potential value of the PartoPen at different levels of the healthcare delivery and training hierarchy.