Cambodia National Health Hotline -115
In 2016, in Cambodia, a free national hotline was redesigned for the public to report health threats directly to national health authorities. The hotline played a very important role in responding to COVID-19 in Cambodia. It was awarded as the winner of the WHO Western Pacific Innovation Challenge in 2022. By April 2023, the hotline has received over 3.4 million calls/reports.
In 2016, in Cambodia, a free national hotline was redesigned for the public to report health threats directly to national health authorities. The hotline played a very important role in responding to COVID-19 in Cambodia. It was awarded as the winner of the WHO Western Pacific Innovation Challenge in 2022. By April 2023, the hotline has received over 3.4 million calls/reports.
The InSTEDD iLab SEA, a local technology company, played an instrumental role in developing and maintaining the hotline. The hotline was built using a free and open-source tool called Verboice. A partnership between the Ministry of Health (MoH) and Telecom Cambodia enables equitable national access. The hotline is manned 24/7, with real threats responded to by the Cambodia CDC. Support for the hotline pilot was provided through philanthropic funding, and in 2020, the MoH took ownership and covered infrastructure costs.
One year after the rollout of the Hotline-115 system, the percentage of health center weekly reports not adequately completed was reduced by half, from 20% to 10%. Additionally, the system saved 65 hours per week that were previously used by Operational Districts for calls, enabling the already over-stretched staff to attend to other tasks.
In early 2020, when COVID-19 began spreading in Cambodia and the supply of COVID-19 test kits was scarce, the CCDC used Hotline-115 for screening testing requests from the public. Shortly after, the system was enhanced to facilitate partially automated contact tracing. A contact tracer can export the list of close contacts from the WHO's Go.Data case recording system and import it into Hotline-115 to perform automated calls in four languages to close contacts of confirmed cases. These automated calls repeat for 14 consecutive days and inquire about symptoms. If the person receiving the automated call confirms symptoms, the case is escalated to the contact tracing team, which then follows up with a human call.
Between January 2016 and March 2022, Hotline-115 received an average of 592 incoming public calls each day, with a peak of over 18,000 incoming calls per day from the public. Additionally, between April 2020 and March 2022, the hotline sent out an average of 2,654 automated contact tracing calls per day. Out of the respondents from the contact tracing calls, 1.3% met the COVID-19 symptoms definition.
National Hotline-115 was selected as a winner of the WHO Western Pacific Innovation Challenge in 2022 and contribute a View Point article on the Lancet regional health Western Pacific.
Project period: January 2016 - February 2021
* The hotline continue to run until today under the management and ownership of CCDC, MoH Cambodia
Duration: January 2016 - February 2021
Location: Cambodia
Funded by: Ending Pandemics
Partners: MoH Cambodia, InSTEDD iLab SEA, Telecom Cambodia