Change and innovation has long been a constant process at management4health. m4h constantly strives to implement new strategies and concepts that would drive healthy disruptions across global health systems. Since the inception of the digital health team at m4h, m4h has been tackling ongoing and upcoming projects with a digital strategy which is spurring the use of data-driven technologies and improvise on digitization and automation across various projects.

Digital data from hospitals in the snowy mountains and rough terrains of the Central Asian Republics…

Our digital health team has been a key component of the m4h’s multiple projects in the Central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan. The healthcare system of Kyrgyzstan is highly complex in terms geography and design. Conventional data collection, documentation and analysis were few among the multiple hick-coughs of this country’s healthcare system. As a part of developing the National Master Plan for the country, our digital team proliferated digital tools and technologies, which enabled the project team and the various stake holders of the project to innovate, generate evidence and adopt digital health tools for better policy design. Our team developed digital data collection tools which accelerated a complex process of data collection and data reporting. We also use Geographic Information System (GIS) tools like QGIS and ArcGis to map the various facilities of the country. In another project, our team is developing a District Health Information System (DHIS2) tool customization for collection data into a cerebral palsy register.

Closing the distance with healthcare provisions in Makassar, Indonesia…

Our digital health team is working closely with the rest of the m4h project team to ‘’virtually’’ close the gaps of healthcare provisions at the various regions of the island of Sulawesi. The m4h team is involved in designing and setting up a comprehensive ‘Telemedicine’ system at the Hospital Hasanuddin University (UNHAS) in Makassar. This system will efficiently tackle existing healthcare challenges and will improve provision of care to the entire population of the island of Sulawesi. The system shall realize: Teleconsultation, Telemonitoring, Teleradiology, Telepathology, Telecardiology, Telepulmonology, Teleneurology with an effective link to the HMIS. This will allow immediate access to patient data anywhere and will include an interface to Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS).

e-health improving Maternal and Child Care in Remote Areas (IMCCR) in Nepal …

As m4h’s team designs and constructs a chain of satellite centers (health posts) in the rural regions of Alital, Melbisauna, Bagarkot, Bhadrapur, Bhairabsthan, Chatiwan, Kotila, and Malladehi, our digital team is equipping these rural centers with healthcare technology in the form of telemedicine and e-health solutions to provide improved and sustained health care to these regions.

Improving student healthcare in South Africa …

School students in almost 875 schools in the district of Alfred Nzo will now benefit from the use of digital health and mapping technology which will ease referrals from schools to healthcare facilities. m4h will develop mobile data collection digital tools, use DHIS2 systems and develop GIS mapping to tackle existing challenges in the Integrated School Health Program of the country.

Supporting the open source revolution …

This year, our team has also partnered with HISP India to technical support for the development of the open IMIS tool and its implementation in Nepal.

Finally, in ‘bits’ and ‘bytes’…

Over all 2019 has been full of innovative learning and implementation experience for our management4health team – from using technology to complement successful development and implementation of various projects and to learning new skill for developing in-house skills.

Our team is looking forward to closely work with development partners to achieve UHC and to use digital health technologies as an added arm for all our future projects.

“May all your data be correct, learning be bright, and predictions be accurate in the new year.’’

Happy New year 2020!

Digital Health team, m4h

Authored by: Dr. Arunakiry Natarajan, Project Manager and Digital Health Data Specialist at m4h

Revised ad co-authored by: Dr. Erion Dasho, Director of Digital Health and Innovation at m4h