NAIROBI, Kenya
The ICT Authority has named ZiDi, a mobile health management system that provides access to real-time data to improve health planning decisions, as this year’s Innovation Award Winner in the Health Care Delivery sector. ZiDi, developed by MicroClinic Technologies with technical support from Microsoft under the 4Afrika initiative, is designed to tackle the quality of maternal and child healthcare by facilitating the diagnosis and treatment of common diseases.
Currently, the application is being trialled in six health centres and public dispensaries in Kiambu and Kisumu counties and the Gatundu Sub District Hospital that serves in excess of 3,000 patients monthly. ZiDi™ automates stocktaking, personnel administration, financial management and service delivery in these health centres. Zidi also monitors service utilization and consumption of vaccines and all essential drugs and accurately forecasts the potential demand for over 5,000 health facilities in Kenya.
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.
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.
Microsoft Country Manager for Kenya Kunle Awosika said, “We are excited to work with MicroClinic Technologies to help revolutionize Africa’s health sector through technology to improve lives.”
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