Advancing E-Health in Uganda- EMR4DW.

 Peter Smith

EMR4DW held a meeting with the ministry of health in July on the concept of Emergency Medical records and other aspects of E-Health.

Dr Eddie Mukooyo and the department of Health Information were very receptive to our proven concept of EMRs working well in Uganda and covering over 50,000 patients.

After 5 years of regular work in Eastern Uganda, our team has been able to develop a system which is built around the Ugandan Government reporting requirements covering HMIS105 forms at a touch of a button and much more.

The committee appreciated the demonstration of a system which is very user friendly, creates a medical history and chronological medical records along with disease management support in the form of traffic light warning signs for abnormal readings. They also enjoyed the demonstration of the reporting capabilities and as to how we can show disease prevalence with all diagnoses being WHO coded. This data can therefore can be part of an internationally recognized Electronic Health Record system.

We also demonstrated the live pharmacy stock control package which enables clinicians and managers to keep watch of stocks on a minute by minute basis along with a similar cash flow package.

Along with the UUKHA, EMR4DW are hopeful to create further links with the e-Health working group and further meetings during the day helped to forge these links.

We are hoping to work together on a bid to raise support from external agencies to scale up the system for use in Health Clinics in a district in Eastern Uganda along with the hospital. If this system was cloud based, electronic transfer of clinical information between agencies would be possible and this would be a ground breaking project in Uganda.

The EMR4DW team have a broad range of experience including clinical, IT and high level management. Three of us have direct clinical experience in Uganda. We would be delighted to work with UUKHA and the Ugandan Government in putting forward a bid to further the development of EMR in Uganda.

We have already planned our first steps of liaising via UUKHA with the Ugandan EMR team to ask for their opinions and to create a joint working group

Many thanks once again to Dr John Paul Bagala, Dr. Henry Muwonge and the entire UUKHA secretariat.