Part of the BMJ Global Health supplement on digital health in South Africa, this paper discusses how targeted client communications such as text messages have emerged as a promising digital intervention to drive demand for services in low-income and middle-income country settings. It explains how MomConnect illustrates how an investment in the digital solutions within a particular health programmatic area (eg, maternal health) can simultaneously contribute towards the development of ‘common good’ foundational elements of an interoperable digital national health information system.

Mehl GL, Tamrat T, Bhardwaj S, Blaschke S, Labrique A. Digital health vision: could MomConnect provide a pragmatic starting point for achieving universal health coverage in South Africa and elsewhere?. BMJ Global Health. 2018;3:e000626. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000626