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Sembajwe Rita

Description

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the BioSense program in 2003 to establish an integrated system of nationwide public health surveillance for the early detection and assessment of potential bioterrorism-related illness. Over the ensuing years, the original aims of BioSense were broadened to meet evolving public health surveillance needs and priorities.

In 2009, CDC embarked on a redesign of the BioSense system that would retain the original purpose of early event (or threat) detection and characterization, but enhance the capacity for situation awareness, event response, and routine public health practice. The BioSense redesign will be accomplished through continuous involvement of state and local users, and technical experts in the planning, design, development, and testing phases of the new BioSense system.

 

Objective

The objective of this poster presentation is to provide information on the efforts and results of the user requirements gathering process, pursued in the redesign of the BioSense system employing a User-Centered Design (UCD) approach. A UCD system development approach studies the people that the system will serve, and involves them through the planning, design, and development processes.

Submitted by hparton on
Description

Zimbabwe's National Health Laboratory Services faces multiple challenges related to inadequate financial support and skilled human resources, insufficient infrastructure, and inefficient tracking of clinical samples collected by health facilities. The slow turnaround time and poor management of the sample testing process, as well as delivery of results remain critical challenges. Compounding these problems further is a manual system for tracking large volumes of samples. This laborious and time-consuming process is inefficient for management of high amounts of incoming medical samples, frequently resulting in incomplete and inaccurate data. Additionally, health facilities are unable to monitor clinical samples and results in transit, leading to misplaced samples and missing results. Furthermore, although the laboratory service runs on a tiered network system - with lower level laboratories referring surveillance samples to higher level laboratories, processing of samples is not fulfilled promptly. The solutions to these challenges are divergent - sometimes even pointing in different directions. To this end, the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) has identified and integrated a LIMS to improve tracking of samples from the time of collection through results delivery.

Objective:

Understand the challenges that exist in the Zimbabwe health systems, that could be addressed through the integration of a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). Understand key aspects for consideration when selecting and adapting a LIMS in a resource limited setting. Showcase improvements in laboratory information management processes following adoption of a LIMS.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

RTI International has worked on enhancing health information and disease surveillance systems in many countries, including The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Philippines, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Strengthening these systems is critical for all three of the Prevent, Detect and Respond domains within the Global Health Security Agenda. 

We have deep experience in this area, ranging from implementing District Health Information Software (DHIS), electronic medical records, health facility registries, eHealth national strategies, electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response system (eIDSR), mobile real-time malaria surveillance and response, national weekly disease surveillance, patient referral system, and community based surveillance. These experiences and lessons learned can inform work being done to advance the GHSA.

We will discuss several examples, including activities in Zimbabwe and Tanzania. RTI has been working in Zimbabwe for over six years to strengthen the national health information system. This work has included the configuration and roll-out of DHIS 2, the national electronic health information system. In doing so, RTI examined and revitalized the weekly disease surveillance system, improving disease reporting timeliness and completeness from 40% to 90%. Additionally, RTI has integrated mobile technology to help more rapidly communicate laboratory test results, a laboratory information management systems to manage and guide test sample processing, and various other patient level systems in support of health service delivery at the local level. This work has involved capacity building within the ministry of health to allow for sustainable support of health information systems practices and technology and improvements to data dissemination and use practices. 

Objective

The objective is to discuss two decades of international experience in health information and disease surveillance systems strengthening and synthesize lessons learned as applicable to implementation of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). 

Submitted by uysz on