Caryl Feldacker

Background

About Caryl Feldacker

I am an Associate Professor focused on ensuring quality public health programming and rigorous program monitoring, evaluation, research, learning, and adaptation (MERLA) in low- and middle-income countries, including more than 10 years conducting HIV-related implementation science (IS) activities in sub-Saharan Africa. My current NIH-funded research focuses on applying IS and human-centered design (HCD) principles to implement digital health innovations aimed at improving the quality of patient care while reducing provider workload and program costs in routine low- and middle-income settings. For each initiative, I work closely with Ministries of Health and local partners with the aim of helping strengthen MERLA capacity for sustained improvement. My digital health interventions employ open-source tools and center local stakeholders from conceptualization through dissemination. Results from these collaborations demonstrate safety of the two-way, text-based (2wT) approach for male circumcision (MC) follow-up, reducing healthcare worker burden with high usability and lower cost. 2wT for MC is now scaling nationally in Zimbabwe. New projects are optimizing an offline-first mobile electronic medical record system (EMRS) and applying the 2wT approach to improve retention in HIV-related care, both in collaboration with Lighthouse Trust in Lilongwe, Malawi. Other current collaborations using IS and HCD approaches include partnerships with Aurum Institute on 2wT for MC follow-up in South Africa and 2wT for both MC and ART in collaboration with Zimbabwe Technical Assistance, Training and Education Centre for Health - ZIM-TTECH (Harare, Zimbabwe). Future adaptions will take the 2wT approach for follow-up post Cesarean section to improve identification of, and swift referral for, surgical site infections.