Meet the Team - Sonia Khalil

Meet Sonia Khalil, the Procurement Supervisor in our Sierra Leone office!

Sonia joined eHealth Africa (eHA) over  4 years ago. Her role supports all programs and projects. She is responsible for procurement activities, including managing supplier contracts & relationships, managing efficient distribution of supplies in the supply chain cycle, and providing training internally to ensure good internal control systems. Sonia serves as the lead in the Operations team to ensure procurement processes and procedures are followed.

Sonia’s work with eHA  has made her develop a strong international field experience in supply chain. This role has  further made her diplomatic, cultural and gender sensitive. When Ebola broke out in Sierra Leone, Sonia had the opportunity of taking part in the Ebola Response Management System right from the beginning of the outbreak, where she served as the focal person for all logistical support for the organization.

During the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Vaccine trial in 2015, Sonia also supervised the logistics, fleet and procurement staff in preparation and implementation of the project work plan to monitor supplies throughout the clinical trial at the time.

Sonia’s contribution to her team has been remarkable. She has established a good internal control system, provided training and coaching on best procurement practices, established proper procurement policy and templates, practiced with the team fair and transparent procurement structures.

Her greatest achievements have been: managing the initial set-up of the offices and providing a system for the rapid distribution of supplies and logistical support to the various emergency response centers in the districts during initial emergency stage in 2014; participating in program and emergency response strategy planning, participating in the development and deployment of policies for best practices.

Sonia won an award for Outstanding Non-Profit Professional Staff of The Year 2018. The award was presented by the Sierra Leone CEO council at the Golden Tulip Hotel, Aberdeen, Freetown, Sierra Leone.

We are happy and proud to have Sonia as part of our eHealth Africa team.

Would you like to be a part of our team? Click here to find out more.

eHA supports skill building of Sierra Leone’s Community Health Officers

By Sibongile Chikombore and Uche Ajene

The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) exposed the need for increasing human resource capacity in  Sierra Leone’s fragile health system. Prior to the launch of the Community Health Officers Management and Leadership Training Program (CHO-MLTP) in 2016, there was no formal training of that nature for health professionals in the country. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS), Njala University, Emory University, ICAP of Columbia University, and eHealth Africa (eHA) to develop a novel training program to address this need and ultimately improve health service delivery and health outcomes in Sierra Leone. CHOs working at Community Health Centers (CHCs) were targeted to be the first cadre to receive this public health management and leadership training, given their key role as first-line health service providers and chiefdom leaders.

The aim of the MLTP is to emphasize public health systems thinking and basic management principles needed to run effective health facilities and outreach services. The emphasis of the project is also to strengthen interpersonal communication and engagement with community leaders in order to develop practical and sustainable solutions to longstanding public health challenges.

In Sierra Leone, the Peripheral Health Units (PHU) comprise of  Community Health Centres (CHCs), Community Health Posts (CHPs) and Maternal and Child Health Post (MCHPs). CHCs are headed by a Community Health Officer (CHO). The CHC is usually located at chiefdom headquarter level and provides services to a population ranging from 5,000-10,000 people. The CHP and MCHP are both usually located at smaller villages serving about 5000 or fewer people. They are manned by Community Health Assistants (CHAs) or Dispensers and Maternal and Child Health Aides (MCH-Aides) respectively.

CHO functions at the health center largely include administrative and clinical duties. The clinical responsibilities include treatment and appropriate referrals of medical, surgical and obstetric emergencies. They also supervise the activities of other PHUs in the chiefdom and report to the District Health Management Team (DHMT).

A total of ninety-nine (99) out of one hundred and seventy (170) CHOs across eight (8) districts (Bo, Kambia, Koinadugu, Bombali, Kenema, Kailahun, Western Area Urban and Rural) have been trained so far out of 12 targeted districts nationwide. The CHOs are trained in cohorts, comprised of CHOs from two districts.

As part of the effort towards sustainability and smooth transitioning of the CHO MLTP, selected staff from MOHS and Njala University are being trained as Trainers. Saidu Mansaray, CHO at Kroobay Community Health Center, is one of 99 CHOs who has been trained by eHA through the CHO-MLTP and was subsequently nominated to be part of the key individuals to form the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS), Training of Trainers (TOT) team. eHA conducted three TOT sessions for MOHS and Njala University staff who are the key MLTP implementing partners in Sierra Leone.

“I was part of the third cohort studies for the Sierra Leone CHO-MLTP. I was fortunate to be announced as one of the outstanding candidates in the CHO-MLTP Program.’”

— Saidu Mansaray

The CHO MLTP has eleven (11) modules covered over a six-month period, with one of the key modules on Quality Improvement (QI). Before a CHO is eligible to graduate, he/she is expected to implement a QI project on either Improving Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or Hypertension Screening at their respective health facilities over a three month (minimum) period. The QI aims to address gaps or challenges in health service delivery at facility level on HIV or Hypertension during the MLTP, but the knowledge gained can be later used to apply the QI principles on other health challenges at the facility.

Through implementation of the QI, the CHO and PHU staff are able to work together as a team to brainstorm root causes of the health challenge being faced at the  facility, come up with interventions, and prioritize interventions (based on ease of implementation and how important they are on a scale of one to five). From the prioritization matrix, the QI team from each facility then implements the interventions (also known as “change ideas”) within their own capacity, using the limited resources available.

Saidu implemented an HIV screening QI project at his health facility, where HIV testing rates were low. Prior to the implementation of the QI project, only 26% of eligible persons over 15 years old were tested for HIV. Saidu recognized that increased HIV testing would be necessary to ensure that members of his community know their HIV status and could receive appropriate care. Since the implementation of the QI project at his health facility, the HIV testing rate of eligible persons over 15 years has increased to 81%, and patients found to be positive have also started receiving HIV management care.

“This training has further helped me to manage both logistics and human resources at the facility. I am now able to use the little resources I have in my facility to produce the best of results.”

— Saidu Mansaray

Saidu was also nominated to be a TOT participant after showcasing good leadership skills during his MLTP training in cohort three, has attended 3 TOT sessions organized by eHA. In December 2018, Saidu and other CHOs participated in the 3rd ToT session and was captured actively participating during the TOT workshop facilitating and presenting group work assignments to colleagues - see pictures attached below. After the TOT, Saidu and other TOT participants are expected to mentor other CHOs undergoing the MLTP nationwide.

“I am also currently being trained to pass on the skills learned from the CHO-MLTP Program to others.”

— Saidu Mansaray

Meet the Team - Charles Otaigbe

Meet Charles Otaigbe, a groundskeeper at our Kano campus!

Charles joined eHealth Africa four years ago and was one of the staff who made our move to our present facility on Independence Road smoother. He keeps our grounds looking clean and beautiful by taking care of our lawns, flowers and outdoor pest control.

At eHealth Africa, every team member is valued for what they bring to the table. This, in particular, is what Charles loves best about eHealth Africa. He believes that the work environment contributes greatly to staff productivity.

“Even though I am not a core project or programs staff, I know that I have contributed to the success of eHealth Africa by doing my work diligently and this makes me proud.”

— Charles Otaigbe

We are proud to have Charles on our team.

Are you interested in joining our team? Click here to find the perfect spot.

eHealth Africa partners with the Global Healthsites Mapping Project

eHealth Africa is collaborating with The Global Healthsites Mapping project (Healthsites), in their efforts to build a global commons of health facility data using OpenStreetMap, a collaborative mapping initiative. The Healthsites project aims to improve outcomes in the medical and humanitarian sectors by establishing an accessible global baseline of health facility data. Taking an open data approach, Healthsites invites organizations to share health facility data and collaborate.

From routine reporting to emergency services, health facility data drives how national health ministries, international institutions, and private companies operate in a highly functioning health system.  While accuracy is vital for effective service delivery  health facility lists are frequently inaccurate, outdated, duplicated, incomplete, and not made available in open and accessible methods.

“Definition of the scope, service provision capacities, laboratory capacities, and optimal catchment populations for emergency hospital care should be a priority.”

— Access to emergency hospital care provided by the public sector in sub-Saharan Africa in 2015: a geocoded inventory and spatial analysis - The Lancet Global Health

One of the main barriers to easily accessible and accurate health facility data is a lack of interoperability between different information management systems, which is why working with open data structures and in partnership with different organizations is important. Healthsites’ approach builds on open source standards and technologies implemented by the Open Health Information Exchange Community (OpenHIE). This data sharing strengthens the ability of health authorities in underserved areas to more easily create and update accurate health facility registries.

Data collectors in rural Northern Nigeria

Creating a Global Health Facility Dataset

The project was launched on  March 3, 2016, at the Global Partnership for Humanitarian Impact and Innovation in response the Ebola outbreak in West Africa with support from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Kartoza.

“By providing relevant data on health facilities around the globe we can strengthen health systems, improve emergency care, and save lives. For underserved areas, it has been estimated that improving emergency care can lead to a 45% reduction in mortality rates and a 36% reduction in disability.”

— Access to emergency hospital care provided by the public sector in sub-Saharan Africa in 2015: a geocoded inventory and spatial analysis - The Lancet Global Health

Creating and maintaining a global health facility dataset requires collaboration--current project partners include the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Doctors Without Borders (MSF), The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), the International Hospital Federation, and CartONG. To make the project successful worldwide, Healthsites is inviting organizations to support their work in areas including Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo through the Digital Square Global Goods program.

The primary use cases include:

Epidemic Preparedness:
Accurate healthcare facility data is vital to respond to outbreaks, prepare for an influx of cases, and to make decisions regarding resource allocation.

Support for disaster response:
Accurate and up-to-date data provides the basic data that helps drive activities like service availability planning, monitoring and evaluation, and disaster risk preparedness.

Support for immunization programs:
Information on the location of health care providers is important for immunization planning on the national scale.

Maternity care:
Open and accurate health care facility data is a valuable resource for pregnant women looking for support when planning a birth.

eHealth Africa and Healthsites

eHA’s technology is key to enabling Healthsites’ vision of a health facility global commons. Gather, eHA’s human-mediated data collection and curation application will be used to crowdsource facility information and widen the scope of the project.  Healthsites will also utilize eHA’s Aether platform to facilitate interoperability and allow for a large-scale exchange of data between numerous organizations.

eHA’s extensive experience in West Africa working with health facility data collection and presentation will facilitate the advocacy of open data and data sharing with the Global Healthsites Mapping Project within the region.

The eHA team, setting out on another data collection campaign. Mobile phones are used to capture geospatial data from the field.

The data life cycle starts with crowdsourcing facility data. Collected information is then sent into Healthsites platform where the data goes through a quality check and enrichment processes to make sure that the information is updated and relevant. Once validated, Aether allows the data to be shared in CKAN, OSM, HDX and later on with OpenHIE, making sure the open data community can contribute to this ambitious project as well. The idea is to foster a  "data collaborative" approach, which continuously involves more people that can contribute and benefit from information sharing.

The Data Cycle

By enhancing the quality and accessibility of health facility data, this project can have an impressive impact on multiple sectors. Not only can the database help save lives in emergency response situations by facilitating access to emergency care, but also it can improve health outcomes in a wide variety of ways such as strengthening diseases surveillance systems or facilitating medical supply planning and the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns.

Validated open health facility data is a supporting framework for social entrepreneurs

The public sector is not the only beneficiary; entrepreneurs in the private sector also benefit from access to this information. Healthsites provides a web API that allows applications and web services to be created or enhanced to utilize accurate health facility information.  This enables use cases that go beyond simply locating health facilities and medical services. Expanding business opportunities and enabling efficient use of available resources increases the size of the community who will help collect and maintain the data.

Healthsites is improving health capacity data in West Africa and supporting the development of data collaboratives. This is a global project that needs partners to enhance its impact. Get in touch and help us build a global commons of baseline health facility data with OpenStreetMap here.

• @sharehealthdata

Meet the Team - Isaac Too

Meet Isaac Too, who joined the eHealth Africa (eHA) team two years ago as the Finance Manager in our Sierra Leone office!

Isaac is responsible for strategic and technical financial leadership to the team, policies formulation and Implementation, stakeholders engagement, accurate & timely donor financial reporting, vendor relationship management, resource management/internal controls and risk management, among other responsibilities.

Some of Isaac’s greatest achievements have been: championing a zero tolerance policy of financial mismanagement and instilling a culture of management by example; successfully managing multiple donor project closeouts, and was instrumental in the closeout and financial reporting in the Liberia office when we closed its doors earlier this year.  Additionally, Isaac has managed two consecutive external audits (for 2 years) without major queries.

He believes in strong teams and is committed to building the capacity of his team and providing the requisite skills and tools with a view to supporting and delivering strong financial management in our Sierra Leone office.

We are happy and proud to have Isaac as part of our eHealth Africa team.

Would you like to be a part of our team? Click here to find out more.

eHealth Africa wins outstanding International Non-Governmental Organization of the year

On Wednesday, December 12, 2018, the eHealth Africa team in Sierra Leone won the outstanding International Non-governmental organization (INGO) of the year award presented by the Sierra Leone CEO council at the Golden Tulip Hotel, Aberdeen, Freetown, Sierra Leone.  eHA was selected the winner of this year’s award from amongst dozens of other NGOs working in Sierra Leone.

The Sierra Leone CEO council awards is a landmark annual event for the Sierra Leonean business, political, NGO  and diplomatic community that takes place at the end of each year. In its third year now, the event celebrates excellence, innovation, commitment and best practices in the corporate, public and NGO sectors across Sierra Leone. The theme for this year’s event was: Celebrating exceptional leadership and corporate excellence in Sierra Leone.

“Organizations were selected based on the impact they are contributing to many spheres of life. eHealth Africa has been outstanding in the area of development, especially in the health sector.”

— Joseph Moore, Chairman, 2018 Organising Committee, Sierra Leone CEO council Awards.

eHA has been working in Sierra Leone since 2014 and we have successfully implemented projects in the areas of Health Delivery, Public Health Emergency System and Disease Surveillance . Our most recent country report shows the progress and successes we’ve accomplished so far this year.   

At this year’s awards, eHA’s Sonia Khalil, Procurement Supervisor, won an award for Outstanding Non-Profit Professional Staff of The Year 2018.

“I would like to thank my organization ‘eHealth Africa’ , for giving me the opportunity to take part in the Ebola Response Emergency Management system since the very beginning of the outbreak, wherein we used data management support which reduced the response time to procure test results, streamline the tracing & monitoring of potentially infectious individuals and ultimately contain the spread and severity of the outbreak.
Thanks to all eHealth Africa senior management staff, particular Evelyn our Executive Director, the Deputy Director and my line manager. Your contribution to my growth has made me developed a strong international field experience in supply chain and made me diplomatic, cultural and gender sensitive.”

— Sonia Khalil

Internship Spotlight: Eleanor Williamson-Taylor

Eleanor Williamson-Taylor is a programs Intern at eHealth Africa (eHA) in Sierra Leone. She joined eHA in September 2018.  

Eleanor currently works with the Public Health Workforce Development Team (PHWD). Her role involves liaising and coordinating with various PHWD stakeholders including the Directorate of Human Resources for Health, Directorate of Health Securities and Emergencies, Clinton Health Access Initiative, and U.S Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among other partners to ensure effective collaboration in developing the strategy for development of the public health workforce in Sierra Leone.

She says more in this:

World AIDS Day Spotlight

According to the World Health Organization, 36.9 million people worldwide are living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the largest proportion of those people are in Africa.  Africa also accounts for two-thirds of the global total of new HIV infections. However, WHO estimates that over 40% of people who are infected with the HIV virus are unaware of their status. In 2014, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and its partners launched the global 90–90–90 targets— to diagnose 90% of all HIV-positive persons, provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 90% of those diagnosed, and achieve viral suppression for 90% of those treated by 2020.

Nigeria has the second largest HIV epidemic in the world and one of the highest rates of new infection in sub-Saharan Africa. 1 There are several agencies within the country working together to meet the 90-90-90 target to help end the AIDS epidemic. This year, eHealth Africa partnered with Solina Group on the Nigeria AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey, which is focused on assessing the prevalence of HIV and Hepatitis B and C in the country. eHA developed a mobile data collection tool which is being used to monitor the activities of field survey teams to ensure that they comply with laid- down standards. The field survey teams will visit selected households across all 36 states of Nigeria, and conduct HIV, Hepatitis B & C counseling and testing. eHA trained over 40 personnel including field monitors, supervisors and data analysts to use the electronic survey tools developed to collect, access, modify and publish data.  We also set up a data collection system to aggregate and process this data, which Solina Group uses for their analysis. So far, 29 states and the FCT have been monitored successfully.

The results of this survey will provide key information that will guide the Government to plan and develop more effective programs to control HIV and Hepatitis in Nigeria leading to healthier individuals and families.

With projects like this, eHA helps to support the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Meet the Team - Abdulkareem Iyamu

Meet Abdulkareem Iyamu, a Senior Coordinator with our Operations team at our Kano Campus in Nigeria!

Kareem, as he is fondly called, works with the Geo- Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3)  project that mapped 25 states in Nigeria plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Currently, the project focuses on supporting states to use the geospatial data for informed decision making. The implementation of the project is mostly field-based and therefore, requires constant logistics support.

Kareem coordinates the operations side of the project. He makes sure people and resources are where they need to be at all times. He organizes travel plans, coordinates activities and event, and oversees the purchase and delivery of equipment. He ensures that the GRID3 project runs smoothly and often jokes that he could pass for the SCRUM master on the project.

Kareem joined eHA in 2017 and he has proved to be a valuable asset to his team and to eHealth Africa as a whole. He is well known and liked for his skills in organizing and is often drafted into various planning committees. He works hard to build relationships that are beneficial to the program and to eHA. Recently, he identified and helped eHA to win an opportunity for a household survey with Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

In Kareem’s opinion, eHA is a platform where every skill is valued and can be honed.

“The GRID3 team and eHA as a whole, have done excellently. I am particularly proud of the fact that we successfully completed phase one of the GRID3 project, in record time. At the beginning of the project, it seemed like a herculean feat to map the whole country in 7 months but we did it.”

— Abdulkareem Iyamu

Are you passionate about operations and logistics? Click here to read more about career options at eHA.

Meet the Winners - #KadHack2018

Maaruf Dauda, Mercy Markus & Swam Didam Bobby - Team Egress

The Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) project was born out of the successful mapping of 11 northern states during the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).  Building on that, the GRID3 project scaled up to collect geospatial data and to map the remaining 25 states, plus FCT. Datasets relevant to Nigeria’s development needs across sectors such as health, education, environment, agriculture, urban planning, and investment promotion, were collected. Some of the data collected is currently being used in the health sector to support the planning and delivery of polio and routine immunization in Nigeria -  http://vts.eocng.org

To support governments, ministries, departments and agencies to identify use cases for the data collected in phase one of the GRID3 project in their states, eHealth Africa’s GRID3 team partnered with CoLab Innovation Hub, the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics (KDBS), the  Kaduna State Budget and Planning Commission, the Kaduna State Government, and Kaduna ICTHub, to host a first of its kind hackathon, KadHack2018, in Kaduna State from November 27 - 29, 2018.

KadHack2018 was an opportunity for stakeholders in the technology sector to engage the Kaduna state government and gain firsthand insight into the challenges in the Education and Health sectors, in order to come up with software prototypes that could be further developed to solve problems within those sectors. The hackathon was split into 2 categories - a 3-day  on-site hackathon, and an online Hackathon for people outside the state.

The winners were announced today, meet Maaruf Dauda, Mercy Markus and Swam Didam Bobby who are Team Egress.  Their multifunctional “TrackIt” solution provides real-time mobile tracking, that can be used to track goods, vehicles and can also be used to report outbreaks using geo-coordinates. Congratulations to all the teams that participated!

To view more photos from the event, please click here.

World GIS Day 2018

World GIS Day is celebrated annually on November 14. The day provides a platform for stakeholders and users of geographic information to identify, create and demonstrate context-specific applications by which geospatial data can be used to transform our society.

This year, eHA’s GIS team focused on educating the next generation of prospective GIS data collectors, analysts and user— secondary school students in Governors’ College, Kano. The team enlightened the students on the power of geography and how GIS can be used to stimulate development. The team was also on hand to answer questions from the students.

Click through the slideshow to see how it went.

eHA staff with welcoming and innovative geography teachers at Governors' College, Kano

Students are wowed at the benefits of GIS

eHA staff, Kazeem, providing insights on GIS Day, benefits of GIS and how eHA has used GIS for health intervention especially around polio

The Head of Geography Department explaining maps to the students

A student identifying geographical features and landmarks on the Kano state Land-use map

eHA staff, Dennis, highlights the benefits of learning and using GIS technology at a young age. He also talked about eHA’s contribution to road mapping in Kano & Nigeria through the use of OpenStreetMap, which is available for free.

Cross-section of students after the GIS Day event

eHealth Africa: The Founders’ Story

Technology has the ability to transform and improve healthcare in Africa- this is the belief that eHealth Africa (eHA) was founded on.

eHealth Africa was conceived by Evelyn Castle and Adam Thompson, during their work placement at a Family Health Center in Kaduna state, Nigeria. They witnessed firsthand how overwhelming it was for the staff to track patient information and progress using paper-based methods.

Nearly a decade after, eHA has evolved into a health social enterprise that develops electronic health solutions using our expertise in logistics, geographic information systems, and technology. eHA is a team of over 500 people with country offices in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Germany, and the US; and operations across the region.

Watch this video to hear the tale straight from our founders.

You can also click here to read Evelyn’s blog about her inspiration to start eHealth Africa.

Meet The Team - Patricia Jangah

Meet Patricia Jangah, the Human Resources Manager in our Sierra Leone office!

Patricia joined the eHealth Africa (eHA) team over 2 years ago. She started working with eHA as Manager, Human Resources. She supports all projects at eHA in Sierra Leone.

Patricia maintains and enhances the organization's human resources by planning, implementing and evaluating employee relations and human resources policies, programs, and practices at all times for effectiveness and efficiency. In doing this, she sets up strategies to recruit, develop, retain and reward staff. She Supervises two staff and their department’s mantra is “give results not excuses”. She serves as a connection between the labor related government agencies and eHA in Sierra Leone.

One of Patricia’s greatest successes at #eHA was the development and roll out of the Sierra Leone employee handbook, the development and implementation of an engagement program, called “ Team of the Quarter”. Her department also prides itself on increasing the utilization rate of the HRIS - BambooHR and the attendance software (Swipeclock) by employees to 100% and introducing and maintaining a well structured onboarding program for new employees joining the eHA team in Sierra Leone.

Patricia has also been a vital contributor to the management of all staff related activities in eHA Sierra Leone. Her strength is in creating systems and procedures that make work seamless, and she has successfully done so for the HR team in the Sierra Leone office. She encourages staff development, coaching and mentoring of her supervisees. We are happy to have Patricia on board the eHealth Africa team.

Patricia is particularly proud about the fact that she has been able to put eHA’s HR systems and procedures for success and to create awareness in the organization around Sierra Leone’s labor policies and their  legal implications.

Would you like to be a part of our team? Click here to find out more.

eHealth Africa’s CornBOT wins Fall Armyworm Tech Prize for Frontier Innovation

Fall Armyworm (FAW) is a major farm pest capable of destroying 85 plant species including maize, sorghum, and tomato. Projections show that if FAW is not checked, sub- Saharan Africa could lose up to $13bn worth of food, keeping 300 million people in hunger.

In response to this, Feed the Future partnered with Land O’Lakes International Development and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture to launch the Fall Armyworm Tech Prize in March 2018. The prize sought for timely, context-specific entries that would enable smallholder farmers to identify, treat and track the incidence of Fall Armyworm in Africa.

CornBot mobile app

eHealth Africa partnered with Dr. Cornelius Adewale, the Bullitt Environmental Fellow at Washington State University (WSU), to develop CornBot, a mobile application equipped with audio-visual algorithms to enable farmers to identify, detect, prevent, manage and control FAW on their farms. The app is very user friendly as it is also available in the farmers’  local languages.

The application also provides handy information that allows the farmer to make requests for specialist’s help where needed. CornBot also has a dashboard that provides real-time information and a heat map for CornBot-reported FAW diagnosis and detection to researchers, decision makers and other stakeholders for surveillance purposes and informed decision making.

Fall Armyworm Tech Prize - Frontier Innovation award

Out of 225 applications from countries all over the world, CornBot scaled through four stages, including a user testing stage among smallholder farmers to ensure viability and effectiveness, and emerged as one of the 6 winners of the Fall Armyworm Tech Prize. At the AfricaCom Awards, eHealth Africa was presented with the Frontier Innovation award and was also awarded prize money of US $50,000.

About CornBot, the FAW Tech Prize panel had this to say, “CornBot had the highest testing score of all the solutions because the app’s interface was extremely easy to use and included a step by step FAW identification system for farmers. The solution is extremely comprehensive and accessible due to its use of human-centered design”

Through CornBot and our nutrition and food security systems focus area, eHealth Africa aims to develop data-driven, technological approaches to improving the quality and availability of nutritious food products throughout West Africa.

The Gender Gap in Public Health- Our Executive Director’s Perspective

Health care workers in Sierra Leone at an eIDSR training

The World Health Summit brings together stakeholders from health sectors and systems around the world to address pressing issues and chart a course for healthcare and medicine. On October 14-16, 2018, over 2,000 participants from countries all over the world converged at the World Health Summit in Berlin, Germany.

Our Executive Director, Evelyn Castle attended the summit and spoke on a panel discussing “Digital Integration of Surveillance and Outbreak Response Management”. She shared eHealth Africa’s experience leveraging digital surveillance tools such as Ebola Sense Follow-up and Electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance Response System (eIDSR) through an integrated data platform.

Watch her full presentation here

She was one of the only 102 women panelists who participated in the discussion. Some panels, in fact, had no women. This brought the issue of the gender gap in public health to the fore through a dedicated panel discussion tagged Addressing the Gender Dimensions for Health Systems Strengthening. She talks more about it on her Linkedin blog.

The World Health Organization estimates that over 70% of the global health workforce is made up of women but half of their contributions are unpaid or unacknowledged.

Community health mobilizers at Kawaji Primary Healthcare Center Kano state, Nigeria

Women bring a lot to the table not just as frontline health workers but as primary caregivers on whom the responsibility of executing the end stage of all health policies, strategies and programs fall. For example, policies on antenatal care or routine immunization will remain unexecuted if mothers do not bring their children to the health facilities. In addition, a female health worker is an essential asset to the health system, especially in communities where there are cultural or religious barriers prohibiting women from receiving care from male health workers.

The world’s ability to deliver quality health services to the populace lies in the strength of its workforce. Now more than ever, all hands, including women’s, must be on deck to ensure that the emerging challenges in public health, such as antimicrobial resistance, chronic and non-communicable diseases, are combated.

Thanks to the various perspectives offered by the panelists at the World Health Summit, it is believed that the first of many steps towards bridging the gender gap in public health has been taken.

Meet the Team - Iheanyichukwu Uzoma

Meet Iheanyichukwu Uzoma, an associate manager with our Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department.

He joined eHA as a Technical Project Manager seventeen months ago; currently, Iheanyi supports GIS tracking activities and analyzes polio vaccination coverage data for settlements in Borno and Yobe states. He also supervises operations for the Vaccinator Tracking Systems project .

One of his biggest achievements is the development of a Missed Settlement Tracking and Analysis (MISTA) Tool, which has been instrumental in identifying, naming and planning immunization campaigns for missed and previously unnamed settlements.

“On a daily basis, my team and I are able to resolve lingering issues with tracking and addressing missed settlements during Polio campaigns in security-challenged states like Borno and Yobe states. I am glad because I get to add value to my team and make a positive impact. By participating in these activities, I am also being impacted upon.”

— Iheanyichuwku Uzoma

Iheanyi is passionate about capacity building and development, not just for himself but for his colleagues. eHealth Africa, he says, has given him the opportunity to share his knowledge and skills with his team and with other staff across the organization. Iheanyi is very well known across eHA for his role in the rollout and adoption of the official project management methodology, Projects in Controlled Environments (PRINCE2), across the organization. His facilitation and coordination efforts contributed to a 93% success rate in the PRINCE2 Certification examinations taken by a number of eHA staff recently.

eLearning - The Journey so far

At eHealth Africa, one of our strategic objectives is to increase access to high-quality eLearning resources for healthcare workers to achieve proficiency in healthcare delivery, management, and leadership.

In line with this, eHealth Africa collaborated with the Kano State Primary Health Care Management Board (KSPHCMB) and other implementing partners, to deploy its eLearning solution on a pilot scale to health workers in Kano State. The eLearning platform is web and mobile-enabled and can be accessed by participants through their Kano Connect android phones.

Fifty- seven Ward Technical Officers (WTOs) and Health Facility In-charges (HFICs) from facilities across three local government areas of Kano state— Gabasawa, Nassarawa and Fagge LGAs—were selected and trained to utilize the eLearning platform. The aim was to improve the delivery of health services in Kano State by providing health workers with access to texts and audio courses and training modules.

Jibrin Mohammed, a Ward Technical Officer from Nassarawa LGA in Kano State shares his experience with the eLearning modules on routine immunization

After a pilot period of 3 months, the health workers who completed all the modules on the platform were awarded certificates of completion at an award ceremony on November 2, 2018. The ceremony was presided over by the Executive Secretary of Kano State Primary Health Care Management Board (KSPHCMB), Dr. Nasir Mahmoud. During the ceremony, selected participants shared their experiences with the platform and testified that they were better able to provide quality Routine Immunization (RI) services at their respective facilities because of the knowledge they had gained.

Following a successful pilot in Kano State, the RI content currently available on the platform is set to be scaled-up to 18 states in Nigeria, with an estimated number of 3000 health workers per state, to participate. Plans are also underway to expand the curriculum to include content on programs such as Cholera, HIV, Malaria, and Maternal and Child health.

Aether 1.0 and Gather 3.0 software releases are out!

Today eHA and the Aether team reached an important development milestone in their contribution to the ehealth open source community -- the release Aether 1.0 and Gather 3.0.

The belief that timely access to accurate data can save lives drives our commitment to create open source software for the development and sustainability of ehealth solutions. We believe that by facilitating the collection, curation, and exchange of relevant health data, we empower decision makers and improve the effectiveness of public health interventions.

With this in mind, last year we started working on Aether, an ambitious project to create a framework for the development of ehealth solutions. We wanted to build a platform that could facilitate developers' work and ensure that ehealth products were built with the highest standards for interoperability, security, and privacy.

OPEN SOURCE RELEASE

We started transforming that vision into a concrete product in September 2017, and in July the following year, we celebrated the open source release of both Aether and Gather.

Aether is a reliable and secure development platform that enables organizations to build solutions that curate and exchange live information. Aether utilizes “data contracts” between systems, simplifies the movement of data between applications, and helps developers adhere to best practices for ehealth system design.

Gather is the first solution built on top of the Aether platform. Gather is a data collection and curation tool that securely collects data in the field and shares it everywhere it is needed. Thanks to Aether, Gather can perform data curation activities like data masking for privacy requirements and can easily be integrated with other systems and workflows for management, transformation, and analysis purposes.

We were committed to making these projects open source both as a way to give back to the public health community we have been active in for years and so that feedback could be used to quickly improve the solutions. Since their development and release, Aether and Gather have been used by eHA and our partners in a variety of projects.

DEPLOYMENTS

Understanding malaria awareness and practices among young people in Sierra Leone

In July 2018, we partnered with Restless Development and CUAMM Africa in Sierra Leone to provide data collection infrastructure for a malaria prevention campaign called "Youth-Led Malaria Prevention Messaging Survey".
The campaign aims to help public health authorities understand young people’s knowledge, attitude, and behavior towards malaria prevention and treatment. We use Gather for data collection and Aether to connect to a Kibana Dashboard for data analysis visualization. So far, 2,417 survey responses have been submitted.

Building a global high-quality humanitarian health facility database

In July 2018, we were awarded funding for a collaborative global health site mapping project with Healthsites.io. The objective of the initiative is to create a high-quality database that includes information on facility locations, medical staff, and services, which can be used to improve humanitarian crisis response. Data collectors will use Gather in the field to capture health facility data, which will then be connected and shared via Aether to Healthsite.io, Open Street Map, and Humanitarian Data Exchange.

Collecting geodata to gain insight into Nigeria and DRC Health and Demographics

In August 2018 we started implementing Aether and Gather in Kaduna State as part of the the GRID3 project, a multi-country initiative to support underserved communities by collecting and analyzing on points of interest such as settlements, roads, and hospitals. The geodata collected through Gather is automatically published via Aether to a publicly available, customized CKAN instance. As of October 12, 2018, 513,084 points of interest have been submitted through Gather.
Since August, eHA’s involvement in the GRID3 project has expanded into multiple states in Nigeria and to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). For its use in the DRC, we customized Gather in partnership with UCLA, CIESIN, Oak Ridge and Flowminder. The GatherDRC mobile app was built specifically for microcensus and other mapping tasks.

THE RELEASE AND NEXT STEPS

You can now download Aether 1.0 and Gather 3.0 and start using the software yourself.

Though this is an important milestone in our development process, it is only the beginning of a much longer journey. Currently, we are working toward the development of new features that will allow multi-tenancy, data validation rules, and workflows. In addition, connectors for other ehealth applications will be added, including:

BPMN: Integrate with Workflow processes and tools like Camunda

Zapier: Participate in data exchange with 100’s of existing Apps

DHIS2: Bi-Directional data exchange with DHIS2 API

FHIR: Bi-Directional data exchange via FHIR standard

We look forward to hearing your feedback on our products and hearing from interested organizations and potential partner that are interested in using Aether and Gather for the global good.

Get in touch with us at solutions@ehealthafrica.org

World Development Information Day

The United Nations established World Development Information Day—October 24—to draw global attention to development problems and the need to disseminate information which can stimulate cooperation and partnership.

As the world attempts to attain the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, the necessity for accurate information and data becomes even more vital. In the face of insufficient resources and competing priorities, governments require data to make decisions about what challenges, interventions, and programs to invest in.

At eHealth Africa, we use the virtuous cycle approach to guide the implementation of all our projects. We believe that collecting, analyzing, and presenting accurate data provides us and our partners with insight to execute our projects. Many of our projects and solutions such as the Geo- Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) and LoMIS Suite aim to provide governments and other decision-makers with up-to-date, accurate information that can help them make the best decisions for various populations. We also develop tools and technologies that make the process of data collection and analysis even more efficient.

Geospatial map generated from data collected on the field

Here are a few examples of how eHA is providing real-time data to aid development through our projects.

• LoMIS Stock is a component of LoMIS Suite, a solution developed to address vaccine inventory challenges. Health workers at the facility level can enter data on a daily basis and submit weekly reports about vaccine stock levels and the status of cold chain equipment through the mobile application. Supervisors can access this data through the LoMIS Stock dashboard and address issues such as low vaccine stock levels and cold chain equipment faults,  at the health facility promptly. Thanks to this real-time data, vaccine stock-outs can be prevented.

Data gathering in the field

• Through the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3), eHealth Africa has collected geospatial data for over 500,000 points of interests including schools, farms, water points, health centers etc. across 25 states and the Federal Capital Territory. Using this data, decision makers in various sectors can plan programs and interventions to effectively address key population groups. Currently, the GRID3 team is conducting a data and technology transfer to the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics (KDBS) to ensure that the state government and relevant ministries, departments and agencies are able to analyze and utilize this data for development.

• Earlier this year, eHA launched Aether, a reliable and secure development platform that enables organizations to build solutions that curate and exchange live information. Aether was developed to address the recurring challenges we faced when building tailored solutions for individual projects. There was a clear opportunity to solve these challenges with a unique application that made large-scale data collection and curation easier so that informed decisions could be reached faster. Aether facilitates interoperability and addresses the issue of data security and privacy and is available as open source and is freely available to everyone.

At eHealth Africa, we believe in the power of data to transform lives and stimulate development. This World Development Information Day, we are more committed than ever to support our partners and stakeholders by developing tools and technologies that can improve access to accurate data.

Meet the Team - Adam Butler

Meet Adam Butler, the Technical Team Lead in the Germany office, and the voice of eHA’s Aether and eIDSR videos!

Adam joined eHA in May 2015 as a software developer before switching to a project management role and then Technical Team Lead in the Germany office, where he manages the Berlin-based developers, designer, and project manager. His role also includes technical project management, currently on Aether, Aya, Gather, and Gather DRC, a microcensus project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“I think anyone who works at eHA has a lot to be proud of. On a high level, I’m proud to have been able to make a small contribution to the (hopefully) imminent eradication of Polio. More specifically, I’m very happy with how we’ve managed to take the Gather application and expand it into the Aether platform; I think that Aether will revolutionize the way that solutions are developed here at eHA. I’m also very curious to see how it will be used by the wider open source community.”

— Adam Butler

When he is not voice acting—stay tuned to hear him in upcoming Gather and Laboratory Services videos—Adam helps decide what eHA should build and how to go about building it. Throughout these processes, he supports the development team by providing them with the tools and information they need to produce the best work they can.

In his leadership role, one of the biggest challenges Adam has faced has been resisting the temptation to dive into code himself to start trying to fix a problem. Instead, as a manager, he focuses on clearing the way for a developer on his team who really knows what they’re doing to solve the issue.

Click here to learn more about joining our team.