Transcript Malawi eHealth Research Centre

eHealth Malawi
Dr John O’Donoghue
Overview
• mHealth and eHealth
• The Role of Data
• Supporting LIFE
• Malawi eHealth Course
• Malawi eHealth Research Centre
• MTIMA
• BioTope
• Research to Publication
mHealth and eHealth
Apps
mHealth
Org
Sensors
Public Health
eHealth
MoH
Databases
NGOs
DigitalHealth
Telecoms
Big Data
Education
Cloud
ICT
The Role of Data
The Role of Data (cont)
Supporting LIFE

To support HSAs in the assessment and
management of children <5 with potentially lifethreatening diseases, such as malaria, pneumonia
and infantile diarrhoea
Why Supporting LIFE?

In Malawi, the under-five mortality rate is 64 per 1,000
live births (WHO, UNICEF, World Bank).

Malaria, pneumonia and infantile diarrhoea are the major
causes of mortality in children under 5 years of age.

Most deaths due to serious infections such as malaria,
pneumonia or dehydration in children could be avoided
by prompt recognition and treatment.
Supporting LIFE Vision

Enhance the knowledge and skills of local health
surveillance assistants through education/training

Improve the assessment & management of young
children with infectious diseases via the use of a
WHO-compliant decision support mobile app for
integrated community case management (iCCM)

Enable real-time disease monitoring and rapid
public health interventions by the MoH using
advanced, mHealth driven reporting infrastructure
Malawi eHealth Courses
ICT
Professionals
• Health workers with
Health Workers
Developers, systems
analyst, database
administrators,
information system
managers… etc.
ICT competencies
• ICT Professional with
understanding of
healthcare
Nurses, Clinician, lab
technicians, health
educations, HSAs,
public health officers…
etc.
Implementation of computer-based health information
systems creates need for a cross-disciplinary workforce in
ICT & health.
Malawi eHealth Courses
• April 2015: A week long course with 20 health coordinators, nurses
and medical staff. Funded through Norwegian church aid.
• November 2015: A week long course with 20 HSAs (new content and
structure), preparation for future courses. Traditional class structure.
Funded through the Supporting LIFE project, Norwegian Church Aid
and Imperial College London.
• December 2015: A week long course with 20 HSAs. Traditional class
structure. Funded through the Supporting LIFE project, Norwegian
Church Aid and Imperial College London.
Malawi eHealth Courses
• May 2016: A 4-week long course with 20 HSAs, Blended learning
class structure i.e. traditional and eLearning. Funded through the
Supporting LIFE project, Norwegian Church Aid and Imperial College
London.
• In parallel seeking funding to ensure long term sustainability of the
eHealth courses. Better integration with undergraduate and
postgraduate programmes across Malawi.
• Holding initial discussions with BMJ, Amref and EU Malawi etc.
Mzuzu University
Health Information System Training
Lab
Established December 2014
20 Touchscreen AIO Computers
Equipped with Windows operating
system and Office Package
Malawi eHealth Courses
Overview of Course Administration
5 days, 18 sessions covering topics in
eHealth, mHealth, practicals in ICT,
DHIS2 and simple data management.
Lecturers:
Cohort 1: Before taking the course,
most of the participants (19 out of
25) had learned some form of
computer skills but were not
proficient.
Cohort 2: Majority of participants
had never used a computer before.

MZUNI ICT Dept. Facilitator

Mzimba North District HMIS
Officer

LIN Staff: Project Coordinator,
Health Information System
Officer

Imperial College London:
Global eHealth Unit Faculty
Members

Student Volunteers (demos)
Malawi eHealth Research Centre
• 40’ Shipping Container converted into a dedicated eHealth Research
and eLearning facility
• The centre is being established to develop capacity in the area of
eHealth for education, research and innovation
• Hosted by Mzuzu University with support from Luke International
• International groups supporting the Malawi eHealth Research Centre
include: Imperial College London, UK, University College Cork,
Ireland, University College Dublin, Ireland
• Twitter:
@eHealthMalawi
Malawi eHealth Research Centre
Malawi eHealth Research Centre
Malawi eHealth Research Centre
Managing Type 2 Diabetes in Malawi and
Africa (MTIMA)
A team of clinicians and scientists from:
Mzuzu Central Hospital
University College Dublin
Queen’s University Belfast
Imperial College London
Luke International Norway
Collaborate research programme to study T2DM with an
aim to prevent morbidity and mortality from this disease.
Managing Type 2 Diabetes in Malawi and
Africa (MTIMA)
• Feasibility pilot study which will involve the setting up a
Diabetes Registry in Mzuzu Central Hospital (August 2015)
• (n=100) patients from Mzuzu Central Hospital
• Collate patient demographic and clinical information, and
perform several clinical and diagnostic tests for T2DM and
associated complications (including NTproBNP).
• Generated data will be used to aid the study design of a
larger clinical diabetes project for a Horizon 2020, MRC and
Wellcome Trust funding applications.
Biomarkers to Diagnose Pneumonia (BioTope)
• Biotope will utilise symptoms and signs easily obtained using
modern technology from children with acute respiratory infection
and combine these with a host response blood & urine biomarker
profile (n=500).
• To be provided as a point of care test to accurately identify
bacterial pneumonia and identify children most at risk of serious
illness.
• Will be deployed as a clinical prediction model using a mobile
phone based solution which will enable monitoring of patterns of
disease and ongoing refinement of the algorithm leading to more
accurate identification of bacterial pneumonia, reduction in
antibiotic use and appropriate early referral of those most at risk
of serious illness.
Challenges
• National infrastructures (roads, transportation, internet) are of a
poor level. This can make the most simple of tasks extremely
difficult.
• Limited or no national registers e.g. birth or death registers. Steps
are underway to correct this over the coming years.
• Essential to have a leading partner on the ground to coordinate all
activities. Without this, a significant communication overhead will
be incurred with limited progress made.
• Good communication is essential in addition to extra guidance and
support to provide training and build capacity.
• Educational services are limited from Primary school to 3rd level.
But improvements are being made.
Primary eHealth/mHealth Groups in Malawi
• Luke International: http://lukeinternational.no/ (North)
• Baobab Health Trust: http://baobabhealth.org/ (Central and
South)
• Both LIN and Baobab have recently signed an MoU to foster
greater collaborations. They are now deploying a unified ICT
systems across Malawi.
• D-Tree International: http://www.d-tree.org/ approximately
(n=500) HSAs (across Malawi) use the D-Tree apps for a number of
administrative and Decision Support activities.
• MoH with John Snow, Inc (JSI): SMS based C-Stock drug
management system. This falls in line with the, Malawi Health
Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) 2011-2016.
Future Plans
• Vision: Establish the Malawi eHealth Research Centre as a natural hub
for Education, Research and Innovation.
• Research: Run the SL clinical trial in Nkhata Bay (July-Sep 2016).
• Scholarship Programme: Working with EU Malawi to develop a new
scholarship programme to establish greater links between Imperial
staff/researchers and Malawi. The EU Erasmus programme may be the
funding source to support this initiative.
• Promotion: Developing a number of short videos to highlight our
research and educational activities. Helping to promote gender equality.
BMJ Research to Publication
• The BMJ has developed new eLearning content to assist early stage
researchers to conduct research is a more rigorous manner and
avoid typical pit falls which at times lead to poor research output
http://www.bmj.com/company/who-we-are/casestudies/research-to-publication/
Thank you.