Strengthening Liberian Human Capacity for Health Services

By Elizabeth Shelley

Since the height of the West African Ebola virus outbreak, eHealth Africa (eHA) has been working with the Liberian Ministry of Health (MOH) to rigorously improve nationwide electronic disease reporting systems, laboratory and diagnostic systems, and emergency management operations.

eHA established Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) in each of Liberia’s 15 counties and supported specimen sampling and storage at 5 priority laboratories. Today, eHA is poised to launch our new electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (eIDSR) app on a national level. With each of these advancements, eHA recognizes the need to ensure the development of a local workforce to maintain these systems beyond the end of eHA’s involvement. As our teams continue to create innovative technological solutions to some of Liberia’s most pressing public health challenges, we are simultaneously providing experts to deliver training workshops for the continued management of these systems, and on ways to modify them to respond to a changing environment.

Recently, in partnership with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), eHA delivered a workshop to MOH staff members in all counties, Surveillance Officers, and other National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) staff on Threats and Hazard Identification and Risks Assessment (THIRA). In this workshop, participants learned to more effectively detect, investigate, and respond to potential public health emergencies.

eHA and the CDC recently delivered training workshops to MOH employees on risk communication and additional workshops technical skills required to manage software solutions and ICT infrastructure. Last year, eHA and the CDC brought representatives from the Linux Association to Liberia to conduct Africa’s first ever Linux Association Administrator Certification program. The workshop, conducted at eHA’s central office in Monrovia, resulted in ten professionals becoming  fully qualified Linux System Administrators.

As the development of our eIDSR Offline Tracker application progresses, eHA is simultaneously planning workshops to train MOH employees, District Surveillance Officers (DSOs), and additional Healthcare Workers (HCWs) on using the software. eHA recognizes the importance of developing local capacity to maintain the software and associated databases, to make modifications as required, and resolve bugs as they occur. This capacity strengthening will prove crucial for sustaining these projects.

Reaching the Hard-to-Reach

Solutions to the Healthcare and Nutrition Crisis in the Lake Chad Region

By Natalya Nepomnyashcha

Years of violent conflict and forced displacement have affected around 17 million people in the Lake Chad Basin, including the regions of North-eastern Nigeria, Northern Cameroon, Western Chad and South-east Niger. Due to food insecurity and the lack of basic healthcare services, the region is experiencing a widespread health crisis and high levels of malnutrition. Accessing the most remote, insecure, and hard-to-reach areas for emergency service provision and humanitarian assistance remains a pressing challenge.

eHealth Africa (eHA) is a health social enterprise focused on improving health systems in West Africa. eHA designs and implements data-driven solutions that respond to local needs and provides underserved communities with tools to lead healthier lives. The German-African Business Association (Afrika-Verein der Deutschen Wirtschaft) is the foreign trade association representing German companies and institutions with an interest in Africa.

Panelists L-R: Anna Sophia Rainer, Prof. Dr. Titus Kühne, Natalya Nepomnyashcha, Dr. Gabriele Poggensee, and Anu Parvatiyar.

Together, the two institutions hosted an event that provided insights into what is happening in the Lake Chad Basin and identify solutions. The speakers included:

• Dr. Gabriele Poggensee, Global Health and Biosecurity Unit, Robert Koch Institute
• Prof. Dr. Titus Kühne, Director, Institute for Computer-assisted Medicine, Charité
• Anu Parvatiyar, Associate Director, Programs, eHealth Africa

After an introduction by Anna Sophia Rainer, Project Manager, German–African Business Association, the panelists discussed the most pressing issues in the Lake Chad Basin. These included drought, terrorist insurgencies, insecurity, lack of equipment, poor infrastructure, dissatisfaction with the governments, and as a result, shaky political conditions.

Functioning disease surveillance systems are one necessary component to help detect and respond to other health problems. Dr. Poggensee believes that the Ebola outbreak of 2014 was a wake-up call for the whole world. Since then, developed countries have been more willing to invest not only in humanitarian aid but also into strengthening health systems and building capacities for potential outbreak responses in Africa. In this context, trained personnel are key to any successful response. Tools are great, but it’s more important that people know how to use them effectively.

eHA works on the outbreak response for polio and broader disease surveillance efforts in the Lake Chad Basin. Having supported polio eradication in Nigeria for several years, eHA helps track immunization campaigns across the region. With polio receiving substantial attention and funding, it also opens doors for related work, such as GIS mapping. For immunization and other aid purposes, it is important to know the location of settlements and points of interest, especially in regions where many roads or entire villages have been destroyed by active insurgents. eHA uses satellite imagery and field intelligence to provide invaluable data that enable aid to reach hard-to-reach populations.

Speaking on the use of digital tools, Prof. Dr. Kühne pointed out that we need a more coordinated approach so tools complement each other as opposed to several projects either targeting the same issue from different directions or missing the bigger picture completely. Rwanda, the Silicon Valley of Africa, is a positive example for a well-managed and interoperable system. To Prof. Dr. Kühne, ownership is the key factor in handling digital health tools.

Dr. Poggensee, Prof. Dr. Kühne, Natalya (Comms & Operations Coordinator, eHA) and Anu. 

According to Dr. Poggensee, another challenge is that many stakeholders develop new digital tools that are not compatible with the existing tools used by WHO. She stressed that this is vastly important since surveillance should not be done for the sake of collecting data, but for the sake of taking action. Anu Parvatiyar summarized it in a nutshell: Instead of collecting data to do reporting, it is essential to collect real-time data to be able to react promptly in case of an emergency. This is exactly where digital tools provide a huge advantage.

Integrating tech and health, eHA achieves its mission by establishing new standards in the delivery of healthcare to most vulnerable communities in West Africa. If you are interested in working with us, please have a look at our job board or contact our team at berlin@eHealthAfrica.org.

Women’s Empowerment At eHealth Africa

Women's empowerment remains a significant topic of discussion all over the world as women often face discrimination, especially when it comes to employment and work conditions.

According to UN Women, women are overall paid less than men. Women in most countries earn on average, only 60 to 75 per cent of men’s wages. In addition to this, a report by the World Bank implies that gender differences in official legislation impact women worldwide. In 90 percent of 143 economies that were studied, researchers found at least one law that restricts women’s economic opportunities. On the other hand, McKinsey & Company found that women’s economic equality is good for businesses. It increases organizational effectiveness and companies greatly benefit from increasing leadership opportunities for women. eHealth Africa (eHA) takes the topic of Women’s Empowerment very seriously and set it as a strategic goal for the year 2017. Amongst other HR initiatives, this led to the formation of eHA’s first Women’s Empowerment Group.

The group started in April 2017 and is based at the Nigeria office in Kano. The aim of the group is to give women a safe space to reflect on personal development and gain greater self-confidence.  So what makes this program so special and effective? The concept for the group was developed in collaboration with Tanja Schomann from Philia. Philia is an organization that teaches peer coaching as an alternative method to traditional mentoring schemes and counseling.

The basic idea is to use peer coaching as a tool to enhance communication skills that promote dialogue and mutual understanding. Participating women support each other in reaching their individual goals as well as enabling spillover effects on entire communities. The Philia Peer Coaching concept focusses not just on topics immediately related to work, but on all areas of life. The idea is that empowerment is a mindset that encompasses the entire personality. A woman that is unable to cope with problems at home will not be able to perform well at work. This is why eHA and Philia chose a more holistic approach to women’s empowerment.

“Philia taught me to be a better listener. It also taught me that most women tend to have the same problems regardless of their culture and backgrounds”

— Layal Srour (Participant)

The group meeting is conducted on a weekly basis. Each session consists of 30 minutes of peer coaching and 30 minutes of teachings on personal development and communication skills. With eleven women participating in the pilot phase, the group has reached a great level of openness, sharing, and mutual support - which is not always easy to reach in a professional context.

Strengthening Programmatic Excellence And Empowering Our Staff

By Natalya Nepomnyashcha

eHealth Africa (eHA) held its first ever Global Programs Conference in our Kano office. 50 participants from 6 offices and three continents represented 5 programmatic pillars as well as over 30 different projects in 10 countries.

The main conference goals were:

• To promote knowledge sharing among various program teams and offices

• To provide in-person training on people and process management

• To promote a common understanding of eHA's mission, values, and resources

• To spend time together growing, and collaborating better as a team

Together as a team, we looked back at our first project in Nigeria, a Maternal Health project in Kaduna, to our first entry into combating Polio, to our regional impact during the Ebola outbreak. We went further to discuss our current endeavors such as expanding the team in the Lake Chad region and the GIS GRID project that will map all states in Nigeria.

This conference was a great opportunity to highlight our integrated approach of connecting data, insight, and execution. As a team, we discussed the previously identified guiding principles in determining the eHA best project fit, which are:

1. Can we do it better than anyone else in the space?

2. Is it driven primarily by our beneficiaries?

3. Is it transformational?

The conference was held from May 17-21, 2017. Day one of the conference was focused on knowledge sharing. The teams had the opportunity to share and present various  projects, results, and impact to one another, be it Health Camp, electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance, and Response (eIDSR), or Vaccine Direct Delivery.

“My personal highlight was seeing the Health Camps boxes, a project in Nigeria. I didn’t know that eHA was testing the items. We also collected data to determine what needs to be in the boxes. It’s such an integrated model” - Dayo Spencer-Walters, Deputy Country Director, Sierra Leone

Day two was focused on people development. We showcased our interest and love for investing in and developing our greatest asset, our people. The conference participants attended a professional management training, where they learned about the importance of delegation and effective communication amongst other topics discussed.

No eHA conference would be complete without learning about the proper use of data and maps. On the final day, participants received very insightful in-house session on how data and maps can be used practically to allow for an evidence-based and timely decision-making.

At eHA, we understand and emphasize the importance of balancing work and life, hence we allocated some of the conference time to attending fun dinners with the team and participating in a slew of games such as trivia night.

The evaluation showed that the conference helped eHA staff to grow professionally, personally, and as a team:

• Almost 90% said the conference made them more excited to work for eHA

• 94% thought the conference provided content for personal and professional growth

As a result, participants not only received input on how to grow as managers, and gained insight into various projects - the group grew much closer as a team and will be able to represent our core values at a new level.

Impact & Quality // Innovative Problem-Solving // Passion // Honesty // Growth & Learning // Ownership

Are you interested in joining eHA? Have a look at our current job openings. We look forward to your applications!