A Health App for Community Heroes

In the Philippines, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are a big problem. Many people die from heart and brain diseases. The Department of Health tried to help by creating the Philippine Package of Essential Non-Communicable Disease Interventions (Phil PEN). But, healthcare workers found it hard to use because of too many forms. To make things easier, someone created a mobile app called the PhilPEN Risk Stratification app. This app is for community health workers (CHWs). It was made using a special method called extreme prototyping. The goal was to help CHWs assess patients' risks more easily. A study was done to check how good this app is. They used a tool called the Mobile App Rating Scale (uMARS). This tool rates apps from 1 to 5. The study wanted to see if the app could get a good score (more than 3). They also wanted to see if uMARS is useful for making apps better. The study found that the app could help CHWs do their jobs better. It also showed that using uMARS can help make apps more useful. This is important because good apps can help healthcare workers a lot.