Returning to Nigeria

Posted by on May 25, 2010 in eHealth Nigeria Blog | No Comments

To support the improvement of Maternal and Reproductive Health in Northern Nigeria our team will be returning to Nigeria for a 6-month implementation and research phase, July – December 2010. We will pilot the new “Instant EMR” (electronic medical records) with Hospitals in Katsina State as well as deploy the first version of the Nigerian Health Information Exchange (NHIE). The primary research projects will be 1) quantifying the resource, time, and financial cost of health information management and 2) understanding the information and decision making needs of maternal/reproductive health care workers.

Also checkout the most recent press about eHealth Nigeria: “Health sciences student wins $10,000 award to support her work in Nigeria“.

Keep up-to-date with us online to follow our progress, find ways to collaborate and support the work of eHealth Nigeria.

History

While working in Nigeria last summer, Adam Thompson, who is a research specialist in Information Technology and global development, and Evelyn Castle, a pre-med student at UC Santa Cruz, were faced with 2 huge problems in health care. First, Nigeria has a deteriorating health system with some of the highest rates of maternal and infant deaths where as many as 1 in 13 women die during child birth. Second, international agencies spend 10′s of millions of dollars in Nigeria supporting health programs and health research but the information about their impact and effectiveness is either unavailable or unknown.

In order to solve both these problems, they implemented Electronic Medical Records Systems in a general hospital and a family health clinic. The implementations are solving problems by allowing health workers to access patient data in order to make informed medical decisions and by sharing data with a partner NGO, Pathfinder International, so that they can determine the effects their health care programs are having.

Current Project

Once back in the U.S., eHealth Nigeria was created. The goal has been to develop “Instant EMR”, a ready-to-go Electronic Medical Records set-up. It is made up of low-power computers running an EMR customized specific for health care in Nigeria, powered by solar, has cell phones for community health workers to take out into villages and urban slums to gather data, and training guides in order to support health worker training.

They are heading back to Nigeria to do an estimated 12 “Instant EMR” implementations. The main goals of the next 6 months are to update the “Instant EMR” system for the needs of Nigerian doctors and community health workers, do as many successful/sustainable implementations as possible, strengthen our relationship with partner organizations, like Pathfinder International, and set-up the Nigerian Health Information Exchange in order to provide NGO’s and government Ministires of Health with the information they need to make effective public health decisions.

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