POOCHO Helpline

POOCHO Helpline

Introduction:

Greenstar Social Marketing being the largest private sector player in family planning for the last 30 years, believes that partnership is a key to real progress and is keen to contribute towards achieving the mission of Greenstar i.e. To contribute to the development of Pakistan through Family Planning and Family Health Solutions. Greenstar is a proud owner for its 24/7 Helpline named POOCHO. It is known as ONE STOP FP SOLUTION for all the public sector organizations and programs working on family planning.

Greenstar’s 24/7 toll-free Helpline POOCHO was established in 2005 with the objective to provide reliable family planning information and counseling services to the callers and connecting them with highly skilled health care providers across Pakistan.

Significance:

The philosophy behind POOCHO is encouraging people to discuss their family planning needs with us, providing them a comfortable environment where they don’t feel shy to talk about their personal life. POOCHO is a platform, where people are confident that they will get comprehensive family planning information and customized counseling services. It is a resource on which people trust that their information is in safe hands and their discussion will be kept confidential.

POOCHO aims to reach out to those who have unmet family planning need or discontinued the method due to myths and misconceptions, fear of side effects, lack of confidence to discuss birth spacing with their partners or lack of information about the nearest health care facility to avail the desired family planning method.

POOCHO is comprised of highly skilled team members who are committed to provide support to the callers round the clock. The team is equipped with state of the art communication systems which includes inbound and outbound calls facility, outgoing SMS facility, customer relationship management (CRM) system, and family planning algorithms, call recordings, integrated voice recording (IVR) and automated caller feedback facility.

A strong training and quality assurance mechanism is also an integral part of the helpline that allows us to maintain the standard and improve the quality of services. POOCHO helpline is currently providing family planning information and counseling services over the call, plus Clients can also listen recorded family planning messages on IVR.  Representatives are also trained to provide awareness on Breast Cancer, and how to use Zinc and Low Osmolar ORS to treat diarrhoea under children of age 5. Quarterly Trainings are also in place to equip the Helpline staff with mandatory information, so they can guide the clients better.

Key Features:

  • 24/7 Toll-free service
  • Urdu, Sindhi, and Pushto Speaking Trained Staff
  • Inbound and outbound calls
  • Integrated voice recorded (IVR) family planning messages.
  • Outbound SMS
  • Customized customer relationship management (CRM) system
  • IUCD removal and incident reporting system
  • Automated caller feedback survey facility
  • FP algorithms for standardized information delivery to callers
  • Client follow-up system
  • Sabz Sitara clinics database across Pakistan for referrals
  • Complaints and feedback management
  • SMART dashboards for day-to-day monitoring

Key Services:

  • FP information and counseling
  • Pre-marital counseling
  • Newlywed counseling
  • Side Effects management counseling
  • PPIUCD Counseling & Support
  • PAC-FP counseling
  • Dispelling myths and misconceptions
  • Family planning products information
  • Backup support for healthcare providers
  • Referrals to healthcare facilities for services
  • Follow-up Calls to the Clients
  • Breast Cancer Awareness
  • Diarrhoea Management
  • IVR Drop Call backs.
  • Informative SMS (Monthly)
  • IVR FP Messages

Call-to-Action:

POOCHO Helpline is an established resource for reliable family planning information and counseling services among the communities for the last 18 years. It is the only FP specific Helpline in the country which serves the communities round the clock.

Helpline is currently handling around 3,000 (three thousand) calls per month. Whereas, it has a huge potential to serve the FP information and counseling needs of around 20,000 (twenty thousand) callers. This indicates that around 17,000 (seventeen thousand) additional calls could be entertained at POOCHO Helpline every month.

Historic Achievements:

On March 15, 2019; Greenstar entered into a Historic Phase for signing the MOU with PWD, DoH and CIP Sindh. Due to this MOU POOCHO Helpline became an official Helpline for Sindh towards achieving FP2020 objectives. Through this initiative, POOCHO Helpline considered to be promoted in the entire Sindh, especially the areas with the lowest CPR. Purpose is to connect this well-established Helpline with the communities for 24/7 reliable family planning information and connect them with the nearest healthcare facilities.

On May 25, 2019; Greenstar entered into a Historic Phase for signing the MOU with Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) for Pashto Language. Due to this MOU POOCHO Helpline became an official Helpline for KPK towards achieving FP2020 objectives. Through this initiative, POOCHO Helpline considered to be promoted in the entire KP, especially the areas with the lowest CPR. Purpose is to connect this well-established Helpline with the communities for 24/7 reliable family planning information and connect them with the nearest healthcare facilities.

Data Collection :

Greenstar has developed a dedicated reporting dashboard. The dashboard enables us to capture and report following variables for each caller:

  • Caller ID
  • First time caller/follow-up caller/repeat caller
  • Gender
  • Age
  • Qualification
  • District/taluka/union council
  • Primary call reason
  • Source of referral
  • Information/counseling service provided.
  • Caller satisfaction (satisfied/unsatisfied)
  • Referral to health facility
  • Consent to receive the call/SMS for follow-up.

Objectives :

  • Increased awareness and uptake of modern contraceptives methods among Rural & Urban communities.
  • Increased number of new users.
  • Decreased number of discontinued FP users.
  • Increased follow-up with new FP users to ensure retention of method adopted.
  • Back-up support for the health workers and service providers round the clock.
  • Back-up support for the FP awareness raising campaigns in the province.
  • Increased referrals to trained health care providers.
  • If a call is disconnected during conversation, or if client gives a missed call on POOCHO Helpline; our representative ensures to call back.