ZiDi™, a mobile health management system that provides access to real-time data to improve health planning decisions has been named as this year’s Innovation Award Winner in the Health Care Delivery sector by Kenya’s ICT Authority.
Developed by MicroClinic Technologies with technical support from Microsoft under the 4Afrika initiative, ZiDi is under pilot in six health centres and public dispensaries in Kiambu and Kisumu counties and the Gatundu Sub District Hospital with a total over 3,000 patients monthly. ZiDi™ is being to automate stocktaking, personnel administration, financial management and service delivery in these health centres. Zidi is also able to monitor service utilization and consumption of vaccines and all essential drugs and accurately forecast the potential demand for over 5,000 health facilities in Kenya and is designed to improve maternal and child healthcare by facilitating the diagnosis and treatment of common diseases.
Cofounded in 2012 by Hoffman Moka Lantum and Mary Matu, ZiDi™ was started with the aim of tackling the administrative burdens faced by medical staff in dispensing health care at medical institutions. Nurses were required to track over 160 commodities manually on bin cards and send to the Kenya Medical Supply Authority (KEMSA) through the county offices via courier. Personnel attendance is tracked on sheets with a full moon for full attendance and a crescent for part time attendance. These administrative duties detract from the core duties of health workers, who end-up dissatisfied and demonstrates the gaps in technology adoption in the health sector in Africa that ZiDi™ seeks to fill.
“ZiDi is trying to transform and bridge the digital divide in the health sector at a very fundamental level using the opportunity technology offers in the health space. The application runs under Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud coupled with Microsoft’s productivity suite, Office 365 to channel real time secure communication between health centres in different locations, and facilitate scalable access to back up data,” says Matu.
Additionally, ZiDi™ also consolidates data at the time of service delivery from various lines of service and all Ministry of Health programmes, such as the malaria and tuberculosis programmes, which currently rely on data collected manually on separately forms, can access their respective data in real time on-line, thus heralding new levels of efficiency and accountability in the public sector.
Commenting on ZiDi™, Microsoft Country Manager for Kenya Kunle Awosika says, “We are excited to work with MicroClinic Technologies to help revolutionize Africa’s health sector through technology to improve lives. In the World Health Report 2013, the World Health Organization called on countries to continue investing in local research in order to develop a system of universal health coverage tailored to each individual country’s situation. This is what ZiDi™ is about; relevant local innovation.”
Kenya’s Vision 2030 Social Pillar seeks to revitalize efficacy of the health Management Information Systems and strengthen Kenya Medical Supplies Authority.
Through local resellers and selected Microsoft partners, health centres running ZiDi™ will be able to acquire affordable smart devices including Windows smartphones and Windows tablets. The devices are powerful to run real time analyses that help medical officers determine probable diagnoses for patients by just entering a list of symptoms in the smart devices.
ZiDi™ also has management of health centre charges and administration and running of institutions. Being an integrated hospital management system, all patients visiting health institutions running ZiDi™ are guaranteed of standardised, quality health care. ZiDi™ makes it easy for medical staff to administer a similar set of process flow to all patients.
ZiDi can also be used by private health care providers, small clinics and large medical centers.