Health centre pharmacy personnel in Nairobi, Kenya, must cope with staff shortages, high patient loads, and a cumbersome paper based records system. Problems encountered include time consuming hand compilation and hand delivery of monthly reports for re-supply of essential drugs and difficulty finding dispensing records. The Qualcomm Wireless Reach™
Kenya Partnership Project uses new computer software and Qualcomm 3G EV-DO Rev A technology over the Telkom Kenya Orange™ broadband wireless network to replace manual record keeping and reporting for pharmaceutical supplies. This improves the management of antiretroviral (ARV) medical supplies critical to human immunodeficiency (HIV) positive patients undergoing antiretroviral therapy (ART). It also saves time for health centre personnel and improves the timeliness and quality of data available for monitoring pharmaceutical supplies.
Based on the needs expressed by the Provincial Medical Office and health centre pharmacists, the project has developed an integrated ART patient and ARV pharmaceutical supply management system called Daily Activity Register software (DAR). The DAR software is based on the RTI-designed Zcore open source software platform . There are no recurrent software licensing fees and the software may be adapted in Kenya as needed in the future. This replaces the manual data entry and report compilation for 16 health centres in Nairobi that provide ART treatment and are supplied by the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA) with ARV pharmaceuticals. The software has the potential to be used by all health centres that are supplied by KEMSA.
The DAR software has the following functionality/advantages:
- Keeps records of medications dispensed to individual patients on given dates (history of all ART related drugs dispensed to patients)
- Keeps basic demographic information about each patient including: Surname, Forenames, Sex, Client ID number, Birth Date/Age
- Makes it easy to select drugs from drop down menus for any drug regimen
- Tracks patient conditions such as weight over time
- Tracks ART regimen for each patient
- Produces a Daily Activity Report which displays a list of patients and the drugs/counts dispensed
- Provides reports for the PMO by health centre (site) and date and provides easy export of data to Excel
- Automatically generates monthly reports for Logistics Management Unit (LMU) at KEMSA based on data entered.
- Data entry forms and fields can be easily updated through a web-based user interface (no programming is required). This enables the software to be easily updated as drugs, reports, and other elements change.
The software improves the timeliness and accuracy of information about the supply, consumption, stock, and loss of pharmaceutical supplies used in ART. The software also reduces the amount of time spent by health center pharmaceutical technicians and pharmacists on maintaining and reporting this information, providing health center pharmaceutical technicians and pharmacists more convenient access to information about pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical supplies used in ART (e.g. dosages, side effects, etc.). Finally, the software improves medical staff capacity to monitor patient ART adherence. Transmission of Data from Health Centre Pharmacies to the PMO and LMU at KEMSA
As the diagram above shows, each health centre pharmacy will have a computer supported by a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) battery backup device and small laser printer. The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) and Dell, USA have donated the computers for the project. The computer will be equipped with a wireless router (provided by Axesstel) that uses Qualcomm 3G EV-DO Rev A wireless technology to connect to the Internet via Telkom Kenya's Orange™ broadband wireless network.
Health centre pharmacy staff use the DAR software to enter patient data, drugs dispensed and stock inventory and compile monthly reports for submission to the LMU at KEMSA, as well as to the PMO. Each health centre then transmits monthly reports to the LMU using Qualcomm 3G EV-DO Rev A wireless technology over the Telkom Kenya Orange™ wireless broadband network. The LMU uses these electronic reports to calculate drug usage and to determine drugs needed for re-supply to each health centre. The PMO and District Pharmacists provide quality assurance by reviewing data submitted by health centres and providing supportive supervision. Any health centre with the DAR software and access to the Telkom Kenya Orange™ advanced wireless broadband network could use this system to manage ARV pharmaceutical supplies and transmit reports to the LMU.
Learn more about the DAR software
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