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I-TECH

Health Information Systems in Kenya

Post categories: Ann Downer Gender/Women & Girls Health Information Systems Human Resources for Health Kenya Nancy Puttkammer
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In 2012, I-TECH designed and developed an electronic medical records (EMR) system, KenyaEMR, to support the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS. KenyaEMR is built on the OpenMRS platform. I-TECH supported the implementation of KenyaEMR in over 300 health facilities throughout Kenya—one of the largest open source EMR rollouts in Africa.

I-TECH supports the use of the system through extensive capacity building of the health managers and through on-site training on system use, for mentors who then train other staff at the facility. The system provides a platform to conduct case-based surveillance of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases as efforts are geared toward data quality and data use.

Additional HIS activity highlights:

  • Starting in 2014, supported the design, development, implementation and use of an open source Basic Laboratory Information System (BLIS).
  • Supported 449 data quality assessments on EMR data across over 173 health facilities. After data cleansing, data quality improved at sites by up to 66%.
  • Supported capacity building through face-to-face cascade trainings using champion mentors, and e-learning in the area of system use, system administration and help desk support, and data use.
  • Piloted automated indicator reporting between electronic medical records (EMR) systems and the DHIS2 system with the aim to support electronic transmission of indicator reporting from EMRs to DHIS2.
  • Supported the design and development of a national unique person identifier (NUPI) for pilot use in Homa Bay County.
  • Supported the design and development of a national gender-based violence database in collaboration with the National Gender and Equality Commission. See news story about this here.
  • Supported the MOH to conduct cohort analyses on key patient outcomes in the HIV treatment cascade and on quality-of-care issues via EMR data.

Starting in 2016, Palladium subawarded to I-TECH to support the CDC Ke-HMIS II project and specifically lead the capacity building and evaluation activities, across KenyaEMR and IQCare sites:

  • The Kenya HMIS II capacity building and training goal is to support the Ministry of Health, County Health Management Teams, and Service Delivery Partners in maintaining and using health information systems innovations in Kenya.