Technology to eliminate HIV double testing, improve reporting time and general health care

Technology to eliminate HIV double testing, improve reporting time and general health care

By Hope Mafaranga

It is amazing on how I can just come here and spend as little time as one hour.  It looks like a miracle to some of us who have lived with HIV / AIDS for more than 20 years.  

Two years ago I required a full day to come for treatment because of the tedious system the health workers had to go through to retrieve our files, but now it is just a click on the bottom with my finger print all will be there and I get services immediately.

Olivia Kajumba 37, a resident of Nyakigumba village, Kisomoro sub-county in Kabarole district who has been getting HIV treatment and care at Kibiito health IV could not find the right words to explain how  gratitude she is about  the new technology of tracking people ‘s health by finger print.

 The technology being implemented by the Makerere University School of Public Health through its project of Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Support (METS) is being piloted in Kabarole and Hoima districts respectively and funded by Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Kajumba said she now spends less time at the health facility and has enough time to engage in more productive work to sustain her family.

“The cues were so long because the system of retrieving our files from the records office was too much. The finger prints technology has reduced lines because it takes a short time to verify my information,” she said.

 She told New Vision that the system is also capable of telling what combination a particular patient is taking, the drugs the patients is allergic to and also know  his/her next medical appointment and the medical  doctor that examined her.

How it works

Among the interventional the technology is spearheading is to monitor the viral load of people who are already on the Antiretroviral drugs (ARVS) to see how they are coping with treatment and if the virus in their bodies have been suppressed.

According to scientists low or supressed viral load will lead to prevention on new HIV infections and also improve the health quality of people living with HIV and reduce HIV mortality.

Chris Byaruhanga the Kabarole district Biostatistician said the technology will also help to know the actual numbers of people living with HIV.

 He said in 2016, the ministry of health placed Kabarole HIV Preference rate at 15 per cent which much higher than the national level of 6.7 percent.

“The facilities with fingerprint technology have been interlinked which is necessary to accurately monitor the clinical progression of HIV positive patients longitudinally,” he said.

Charity Kyomugisha the METS deputy programmes manager said they have been able to eliminate the double testing of people and hope it will go a long way in fighting drug resistance among the people living with HIV.

 Kyomugisha also said it will help to follow up patients who have been in care from one health facility to another and also truck those who are having adherence to treatment challenges.

“We have heard people testing from one center and going to another one to get treatment while others who have absconded on their treatment deceiving their new health providers that they have not been on treatment. The technology will sort all this out,” she added.

Integration

Dr Eddie Mukooyo a commissioner in the minister of Health said the finger print technology will be integrated into the Uganda Electronic Medical Records System (UgandaEMR).

UgandaEMR is an application which enables design of a customised medical records system with no programming knowledge although medical and systems analysis knowledge is required.

Dr. Mukooyo said UgandaEMR was approved Ministry of Health Patient Electronic Medical Records System currently running in 600 health facilities across the country.

 The country has 6,408 facilities including public facilities, private for profit and private not for profit facilities.

He said Ministry of health has set a target of 1000 health facilities to be running UgandaEMR by the end of March 2018.

“Ministry of Health is targeting 1000 additional health facilities to be running UgandaEMR by March 2018.  With support from METS Programme and other partners, the Ministry has customised UgandaEMR to include the Tuberculosis (TB) data entry forms and Maternal and Child Health (MCH) forms and registers,” he said.

Capacity building

To quicken the integration progress, the ministry, METS and other partners gathered at Lake View Hotel in Mbarara district and trained a cadre of UgandaEMR expert trainers and users across the country.

“We are training biostatisticians, recorder keepers and other health workers to upgrade, troubleshoot, use UgandaEMR and extend UgandaEMR in all health facilities,” Dr. Mukooyo said.

He also said the trained cadres will be able to provide hands-on training and build capacities to their colleagues to support the rollout of the updated version of UgandaEMR.

“Trained personnel are expected to pass on the knowledge acquired from the training to rest of their team members so that we have a force of well equipped, knowledgeable people to roll it out at all district level so that our people get comprehensive health services,” he added.

Dr. Edgar Kansiime the HIV Case Based Surveillance Coordinator explained that system will also help Uganda to achieve the 90-90-90 UNAIDS Sustainable Goal by 2020.

“The system will help us to achieve this goal of having all people living with HIV know their HIV status,  all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive treatment  and  all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression by 2020,” Dr. Kansiime said.

Dr Kansiime said the current target is having 1,195,742 clients on ART from 1,476 ART facilities with the majority of these clients from HC III, HC IV and General Hospital across the country.

77% of facilities are Government owned with 67% of targeted clients and the High-volume facilities are the priority for EMR rollout.

“The Ministry is targeting the roll out to cater to non-ART facilities so that they can use UgandaEMR in the subsequent years,” he said.