Adopting a Service-dominant Logic to Prediction of pregnancy Complications: an Exploratory Study of Maternal Healthcare in Uganda

The United Nations listed maternal mortality as a major problem especially in developing countries. Predictive models that predict pregnancy complications have been suggested as an intervention to reduce maternal mortality but at the moment, many are not used in clinical practice. This study proposes a service-dominant perspective as an alternative use of predictive models to create value for maternal healthcare. We conducted an exploratory study in south-eastern Uganda in which we held semi-structured interviews with health practitioners to understand how the maternal healthcare system in Uganda works and how pregnancy complications are predicted. Results were analyzed using components from the service innovation framework. We find that overall, ICT has not been fully exploited to improve access to quality care, improve predictions and to improve collaboration among different practitioners in Uganda. Our findings suggest that by adapting a service-dominant perspective, we can enable predictive models and other technologies to assume an active role in maternal healthcare thereby supporting health practitioners with different skills and knowledge to predict pregnancy complications and hence trigger collaborative value creation. We believe that such an intervention will reduce maternal mortality.