Peers were stationed at the study health units and participated in study participant recruitment, follow up (including home visiting and phone calling), and linkage to other services within the health unit.
An effective PMTCT mobile platform engaging men and women will need to address contexts of non-disclosure, phone sharing, and linkages with existing community and facility-based services.
Our findings highlighted that while women, men, and health workers perceived that tailored SMS and voice calls could improve PMTCT follow-up and men's participation, a fully effective platform would also need to be customized to address contexts of non-disclosure, phone sharing, and linkages with existing community and facility-based counseling.
51 Innovative examples of data linkage include combining mobile phone usage with police records to show the impact of phone calls on collisions while driving, 52 and linking social care with hospital data to predict future usage of social care.
Follow-up was conducted by record linkage to Electoral Rolls, electronic phone books and the Victorian Cancer Registry and death records.
The phone call provided an opportunity for the linkage coordinator to speak directly with the client, establish some initial rapport, and schedule a convenient time and place to meet with the client to discuss the linkage to care program.
The role of technology including point-of-care tests for screening and diagnosis, mobile phone technology, and telemedicine in strengthening care linkages, should be examined.
An independent computerized file with the identification of data (name, surnames, address, phone number, and date of birth) was created for linkage with the Local Census of Cornella in order to update participants' data (vital status, address).
However, before sending the specimens to the laboratory for testing we used probabilistic linkage methods (matching sex, name, birth date, and phone number - usually mobile number) to determine whether an individual had provided more than one specimen.
Some linkage coordinators allowed clients to make a brief phone call after disengagement just to check in and let them know how things were going with their new case manager.
