Our History
Bass Stewart • October 1, 2015
...how our Medical Records System came about
In early 2012 Dr Peter Smith went to Uganda to volunteer in a remote
rural clinic, Bumwalukani. He recognised that while what he was doing
was helping, there was no record of his consultations and no way of
analysing the incidence of any particular disease or complaint.
On
return to Yorkshire, Peter met with Bass Stewart, who runs a
Yorkshire-based IT business, and the collaboration to develop an
Electronic Medical Records (EMR) System (The System) began.Goals for the System
To:
• improve the care of the individual and in particular to reduce child
mortality in order to better target healthcare and education in the
community by tracking disease prevalence and location.
• be easy to learn, robust and reliable, and expandable in terms both of capacity and functionality.
• run on inexpensive hardware that can be accessed by Windows, iOS and Android desktops, laptops and tablets
• be hosted in the Cloud for clinics with access to the internet
Peter and Bass knew they had an exciting product on their hands but
realised that to maximise its success they would need further resources.
So in late 2014 they formed a charity and invited six further Committee
Members to join them, including another clinician with experience in
Africa, Dr Bill Tams. Between them, the two clinicians have since spent
over 6 months in Africa working in medical clinics and developing the
system. All their travel and subsistence will continue to be self
financed.
The charity’s objectives are:
“The relief of sickness and the preservation and protection of health by making available an electronic medical records system for use in the developing world and the provision of medicines and dressings to areas of need in the developing world.”
We now have 5 established clinics in Uganda ( 3 clinics ), Nicaragua and Costa Rica, with a site coming online in Kenya and recent enquiries from Ethiopia, India and Cambodia.In total there are over 19,000 patients on our sites. In these areas we have the ability to measure prevalence of over 80 diseases and, using our simple search facility, can detect geographical pockets of increased incidence of killer diseases such as diarrhoea and malaria and then focus scarce health care resources accordinglyWe ARE making a difference!
The charity’s objectives are:
“The relief of sickness and the preservation and protection of health by making available an electronic medical records system for use in the developing world and the provision of medicines and dressings to areas of need in the developing world.”
We now have 5 established clinics in Uganda ( 3 clinics ), Nicaragua and Costa Rica, with a site coming online in Kenya and recent enquiries from Ethiopia, India and Cambodia.In total there are over 19,000 patients on our sites. In these areas we have the ability to measure prevalence of over 80 diseases and, using our simple search facility, can detect geographical pockets of increased incidence of killer diseases such as diarrhoea and malaria and then focus scarce health care resources accordinglyWe ARE making a difference!
Fundraising and Events
The Development Team is always busy!
Dr Elizabeth and Mark Fowler are back in Uganda this week. Here they are with Henry Muwonge from Uganda UK Health Alliance at the British High Commission in Kampala. They had a positive meeting with Health Policy Officer Brenda Kabibi OutreachEMR look forward to exploring further potential partnerships with the BHC. Check facebook for more updates. https://uukha.org
OutreachEMR are delighted to be recognised by and work with HIFA to achieve our common goals
New EMR Server in Eastern Uganda
Our name may change but we don't!
All at EMR4DW, Medical Records Save Lives, are delighted to congratulate Enoch Magala, and the whole team of Centre for Youth Driven Development Initiatives (CFYDDI). On the opening of their clinic in Jinja Uganda this month. Several of us have been able to visit Enoch and witness the building of this wonderful facility. I visited along with EMR4DW founder’s Dr Peter Smith and Bass Stewart in 2018, to give advice and demonstrate EMR4DW to the enthusiastic staff.
We might be in lockdown in the UK, but the picture shows our Ugandan Senior Ambassador, Julius Okello who spent 2 days helping set up EMR4DW and give staff training.
Don’t look so worried everyone!! Most clinics tell us staff, with no previous computer skills, can learn the basics in a couple of days. So it will get better!
We all wish you the absolute best of luck and are certain this clinic along with EMR4DW electronic medical records will only help in the wonderful work you do.
Watch this blog for further updates.
The Covid pandemic has made 2020 a very difficult year for the whole world. Clinics using EMR4DW are often at the forefront of such difficulties. They are often working in remote poorly funded areas making their work, caring for their community, extremely challenging. Our thoughts. prayers and best wishes go out to every one of them. There is a glint of hope for the future as research on treatment of covid-19 showing simple inexpensive treatments can help as well as vaccines developed, in Oxford, that, I understand, have promised to be available to all countries at no profit. We hope the WHO can help to roll this out to all vulnerable people wherever they are. One thing we are proud of is that our computer software EMR4DW is able to code Covid-19 as a disease allowing our clinics to monitor case numbers in their communities and inform health departments quickly and accurately. When the vaccines are available every clinic will be able to document every covid-19 vaccine given. Let's hope it is soon! Keep up the good work in 2021.
In coping with COVID-19 the World Health Organisation said the only way to deal with the virus is to Test,Test and keep Testing. We at EMR4DW have been in lock-down at home for some weeks but have been using the time to benefit our users by listening to the WHO. We have been testing EMR4DW Version 4.0 to ensure it is working perfectly before we roll out our implementation phase later this year. The picture shows one of our regular System Development ZOOM meetings, where we work through our testing programme and plan how we can include our User Manual within the system on screen. I know some clinics are desperate to access the latest version of EMR4DW and we are very keen that you get it but feel time spent testing now will benefit everyone once we are certain it is ready. Watch this space for further updates.
Our thoughts have been with ALL our clinics around the world but this message from Uganda did lift our spirits! Maegan Hubbard told us her husband Dr. Emma has been using EMR4DW for all the Covid suspects in Manafwa Uganda! He’s been using it to report to the Task Force weekly and track all the patients on self quarantine and institutional quarantine. It’s made life so much easier than a spreadsheet. Each patient has a COVID Health ID to clearly identify them. EMR4DW has improved search facilities for diseases and with direct links to data collecting hubs via DHIS2 for fast and accurate data transfer. Thanks Maegan keep all your family safe and keep up the good work.