gmeltdown

As the pivot25 competition progresses,  I have been getting curious over the nature of applications coming up in the category for mHealth. I thought to myself that perhaps an analysis of locally existing albeit underutilised mHealth applications will help to manage my curiosity. Useful perspective For some reason a lot of my last 8 years was spent working on information systems to improve community based health services. It is a shame that I did not get myself interested enough in SMS based data collection platforms for health service delivery  until recently. Earlier in the year, while reading through @mberg 's blog post I was even surprised by a prediction to see a lot less discussion about the differences in particular platforms ( CommCare , ChildCount+ , FrontlineSMS:Medic , Mwana , MoTeCH ). I could be excused for my apparently slow uptake of these tools because the Kenyan Health IT scene to which I vainly contributed has over the years been mark-timing. The apparent...

My last article in this blog was posted in December 2010. That makes almost 5 months since I made a serious post.  It was by no means intentionally staying away from writing for this long. It was rather more of  'the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak'. To kick start blogging again I shall lazily try to recap the noteworthy developments I have observed in my small technology world during the first three months of 2011. Mobile Monday with Pesapal - January 17 That was an inspiring moment especially listening to Agosta Liko of PesaPal . It was impressive to see a local technology startup begin to penetrate the corporate market place - with schools and banks. I still have not heard much from them regarding one of my wish list items though. They should think more through the possibilities for Kenyans paying monthly rent using PesaPal - their great payment information service. Liko's powerpoint presentation can be downloaded here . OpenMRS meetup  - January 24 Desp...

A week ago I wrote about the then imminent launch of the Standards and Guidelines for electronic medical record systems in Kenya . The document was signed by both the Director of Medical Services (Dr. Francis M. Kimani) and the Director of Public Health and Sanitation (Dr. Shahnaz Kassam Shari). Another week has passed and the document has since been officially launched. It was the Director of Medical Services who launched the document on 3rd November at the Kenyatta International Conference Center on behalf of the Government of Kenya. It has been argued that the existence of two Ministries of Health in Kenya has not been worked well for the country. However, it should be reassuring to note that the document is a product of collaborative efforts between the Ministry of Medical Services and the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation. National AIDS and STI Control Program (NASCOP) which is placed in the Public Health and Sanitation Ministry was a key contributor to the document’s de...

Today I had this nice opportunity to partially attend a PEPFAR partners meeting at the Safari Park Hotel. I shall not assume it is obvious that  PEPFAR  stands for (United States) President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Kenya is said to be one of the countries with the biggest allocation of PEPFAR grants, largely through USAID and CDC . Every year, billions of Kenya Shillings are handled as grants from PEPFAR within the country, so much so that it is almost a sub-economy in itself. PEPFAR, essentially the philanthropy of the American People appears so immense in the health sector that the aid should ideally overflow to the ICT sector through eHealth. For more on related development dynamics see my earlier post on who really are our genuine development partners . Over time, PEPFAR leadership may have discovered that it is not possible to practice philanthropy in the air - it has to be in someone's jurisdiction -  who needs to care that they Americans ...

A couple of days back I wrote my first article on the  the fifth annual OpenMRS implementers meeting . Immediately after posting the article I checked my meeting notes and thought I would need to write on a few more insights that appeared equally profound. Consider this a continuation of the lessons I described in the earlier post . Lesson 4. Open source is great; best with a global community One of the big debates in many developing countries is whether to adopt an Open Source policy for their e-government initiatives. It appears key decision makers have began to appreciate the benefits of such a policy. However there needs to be further understanding that a mere application of open source technologies for development of government software systems is not enough. There is need to embrace the concept of open source from a global community perspective.  A software expert or two can sit with an health care expert and develop an awesome, robust, feature-rich EMR or Pharmacy ...

Last week I had this great opportunity to be a participant at the fifth annual OpenMRS implementers meeting in Cape Town. The meeting brought together implementers, developers and the leadership of OpenMRS. The meeting was of the  'unconference' style and being relatively less experienced with OpenMRS,  I found myself simply following through the intense sessions, soaking up a lot of knowledge and insights. There were many lessons and great experiences including ideas on how to actualize the dream in my earlier post on adopting OpenMRS in Kenya . I shall try and describe three of them in this post - based on my personal synthesis. Lesson 1: Clinical Systems Not Reporting Systems During one of the evening discussions with Dr. Alvin Marcelo and a few others round a dinner table, I had this bulb light somewhere in my mind that ' Really, medical record systems need not be seen as reporting tools '. In fact, to some health care practitioners, that the medical records sys...

Let me first apologies to the faithful readers who have advised to limit the length of posts. I am still learning the art of summary, so please allow the bad old ways for now. Donor interest Kenya's response to HIV and AIDS has over the last decade become a thriving industry in itself. The sustained donor interest and flow of funds to the sector has remained an area of curiosity to many onlookers. A growing school of thought exists; curious why the not-so-meagre funding should not go to fighting Malaria and other diseases with higher mortality rates than AIDS. The donor politics aside, there is a real interest among the so called development partners to finance implementation of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Systems. Their intention, ostensibly so, is to assist in managing administration of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) among people living with HIV in Kenyan health facilities. The more observant ICT strategist or development minded entrepreneur will hear of a distinct and ra...