mHealth4Afrika has co-designed and validated a standards-based, comprehensive patient-centric health platform for use in resource constrained environments. mHealth4Afrika integrates Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) functionality with the use of medical sensors and analytical, data visualisation and decision support tools at the point of care. It supports automatic counting of aggregate program indicator data required by Ministries of Health and SMS appointment notifications. HL7 FHIR integration was undertaken to support transfer of vital sign readings from CE approved medical sensors, lab system data exchange, and the ability to import and export individual patient records to support patient mobility.
mHealth4Afrika leveraged a user-centred design and Collaborative Open Innovation based approach, working in partnership with Ministries of Health, District Health Offices, Clinics Managers and healthcare professionals in healthcare facilities in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa to inform required functionality, workflow and usability requirements. Following three years of co-design, alpha and beta development, the pilot platform was formally validated in real-life environments by 23 intervention health facilities in Northwest Ethiopia, Western Kenya and Southern Malawi and by clinicians from South Africa, between October 2018 and April 2019. It supports a holistic “cradle to grave” approach to patient centric healthcare.

http://www.mHealth4Afrika.org

• Africa

• Youth
• Older persons
• Women
• The poor
• Remote and rural communities
• Adolescent
• Adult
• Children between 5 and 12
• Children under 5
• Elderly
• New born
• Pregnant women
• Ministries of Health, District Health Offices, Healthcare facility Managers, Healthcare professionals

The outputs from this project can be leveraged with suitable adaptation in other resource constrained healthcare facilities.

The initial intervention sites continue to have access to the infrastructure installed and the healthcare platform to support capture and retrieval of individual healthcare records across a range of medical services.

The default data capture method in resource-constrained healthcare facilities in most African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries is based on paper-based registries. This limits the level of detail captured during patient consultations, results in duplication of data across different registries and impacts on the continuum of care. mHealth4Afrika has demonstrated how healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals who have never used ICT tools in their work place can use a comprehensive electronic healthcare platform to support a holistic “cradle to grave” approach to patient centric healthcare leveraging data visualisation and decision support. It has demonstrated how digital literacy and capacity building programs can be put in place alongside introducing the use of ICT to provide healthcare professional with 21st century skills.