|
Diabetes Tanzania
Tanzania, like most countries in Africa today is facing the “double burden of disease” that includes the continuing epidemics of infectious disease and the increasing prevalence of non-communicable disease (NCD). Yet, despite the increasing rates of NCDs such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma, these health problems receive fewer resources and less attention than infectious diseases such as AIDS, pneumonia and Malaria. One reason for this is that the care of patients with chronic disease requires a more sophisticated approach by providers and a system that maintains a clinical record of patients for each visit and is available to the provider at the Point of Service (POS). The goal of our work is to improve the access and quality of care available to patients with NCD’s through the use of electronic algorithms that are linked to an electronic patient record.
Together with the Tanzanian Diabetes Association, D-tree International is developing and evaluating a tool for the management of patients in low-income countries with diabetes, and related non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as hypertension, stroke, asthma, and heart failure. The tool is a set of clinical standards of care for use on handheld computers or cell-phones by nurses in public clinics treating and screening patients for diabetes and related medical problems. Our goal is to provide electronic algorithms that bring high quality screening and care to patients with chronic diseases who are unable to access medical specialists on a regular basis but are able to reach primary care facilities in rural and peri-urban areas of the country. These primary care facilities are commonly staffed by nurses and (non-physician) clinical officers who would use the tool to provide care to this population.
In addition to deploying protocols, the system collects and stores longitudinal data about each patient and uses this data to tailor care for each patient based on their history, symptoms and laboratory results. Longitudinal patient records are critical to effective management of chronic illness such as diabetes but have been difficult to keep and use in many settings due to health workers’ inability to correctly analysis and use this data for patient care. In addition to making data available to the provider about each patient, this data will also be used to report on standard indicators of quality care.
|
|
|
