Nurse Mary (PROMPTS) — Ghana Health Service's AI Maternal & Newborn Health Messaging Platform

Nurse Mary is the Ghanaian name for PROMPTS, a two-way SMS platform letting pregnant women and new mothers text questions from any basic phone and receive guidance, run by Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Health with Kenyan NGO Jacaranda Health.

Provide maternal and newborn health guidance (danger signs, appointment reminders, postpartum care) without requiring internet, a smartphone, or airtime.

An AI system classifies message urgency and drafts replies from a pre-approved pool for routine questions; a human nurse or midwife reviews and verifies every AI-drafted reply, with danger-sign messages routed directly to a health worker. Piloted at Greater Accra Regional Hospital in 2022, then expanded in 2023 and 2024 including to Ashaiman district; PROMPTS has run in Kenya for over a decade under three national Ministry of Health partnerships.

As of mid-2026, 36,500 mothers assisted across 435 facilities in Greater Accra, with 65% pilot engagement and 2,000+ questions logged. Kenya's cumulative decade-long figures cited by backers include 3.8 million mothers reached, a 20% increase in antenatal attendance, 1.85x increase in postpartum family-planning uptake, and 90% of AI-flagged high-risk cases receiving timely hospital care.

The programme is being scaled region by region toward national coverage rather than deployed nationally today; Kenya's results are not yet independently measured outcomes for the newer, smaller Ghanaian deployment.