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Good practice Imported

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

Ghana · Accra · See the Ghana profile · See the Accra profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 24% 73/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Ghana Health Service and Jacaranda Health adapted Kenya's decade-old PROMPTS platform into 'Nurse Mary,' an AI-triaged two-way SMS service that has reached 36,500 mothers across 435 Greater Accra facilities, with nurses verifying every AI-drafted reply before it is sent.

36,500
Mothers assisted (Greater Accra Region)
435
Health facilities covered
65%
Pilot engagement rate
2,000+
Questions logged
3.8 million
Mothers reached (Kenya, cumulative)
20%
Antenatal visit attendance increase (Kenya)
1.85x
Postpartum family-planning uptake increase (Kenya)
90%
AI-flagged high-risk cases receiving timely hospital care (Kenya)

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Ghana Health Service (GHS) and Ghana Ministry of Health, in partnership with Jacaranda Health
Period
Piloted 2022 at Greater Accra Regional Hospital; expanded in phases 2023-2024; scaling region by region as of 2026
Keywords
maternal health, digital health, SMS/AI messaging, health service delivery

Context

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.

Objectives

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

Activities

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.

Results

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.

Conclusions

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.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes Philanthropic / foundation funding

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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