As a key member of the Kenya electronic medical record (EMR) system technical working group, I-TECH works to implement and standardize the EMR systems used in the management of national HIV and AIDS care and treatment data. Similar efforts have focused on ensuring that different electronic systems can communicate with one another (interoperability) and that health care workers, administrators, and staff are well trained to use and maintain them.
Category: Health Information Systems
Health Information Systems in Kenya
In 2012, I-TECH designed and developed an electronic medical records (EMR) system, KenyaEMR, to support the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS. KenyaEMR is built on the OpenMRS platform. I-TECH supported the implementation of KenyaEMR in over 300 health facilities throughout Kenya—one of the largest open source EMR rollouts in Africa.
Innovative Training Models in Tanzania
I-TECH Tanzania has implemented many pre- and in-service training initiatives and materials, as well as adopted TrainSMART. Continue reading “Innovative Training Models in Tanzania”
Layering Research and Practice in Haiti
The EMR iSanté enables research on population health in Haiti, including the implementation of Option B+. This work was presented at the International AIDS Society Conference in 2015 Continue reading “Layering Research and Practice in Haiti”
Gabrielle O’Malley
Gabrielle O’Malley, MA, PHD, is I-TECH’S Director of Implementation Science. Dr. O’Malley has worked as an applied research and evaluation professional for over 25 years. Her experience includes a wide variety of international and domestic programs including child survival, private agricultural enterprise, medical education, community technology, reproductive health, HIV prevention (PrEP), and care and treatment as well as applied research for private industry. Her research interests include innovative practices for program evaluation and improvement, formative research, qualitative methods, and the relationship of gender and health.
Dr. O’Malley received her PhD from UW, an MA from Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Smith College.
Program Highlights
Peter Rabinowitz
Peter Rabinowitz, MD, MPH, directs the Center for One Health Research and has multiple faculty appointments including Professor, Global Health, at UW. The “One Health” center explores linkages between human, animal, and environmental health. Dr. Rabinowitz has expertise in zoonotic infectious disease; diseases of animal workers; microbiome sharing between humans and animals; emerging infectious disease; antimicrobial resistance animal sentinels of environmental health hazards; and noise and hearing loss.
Dr. Rabinowitz also directs the Canary Database, an online resource for evidence about animals as sentinels of environmental health threats from both toxic and infectious hazards. He was a visiting scientist at the Global Influenza Program of the WHO, and also in the Animal Health Division of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). He completed a Family Medicine residency through the University of California San Francisco, and completed fellowships in General Preventive Medicine and Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine.
Program Highlights
Strengthening the HIV Care Continuum and ART Adherence in Namibia
In accordance with the HIV Care Continuum, I-TECH supports direct HIV care and treatment service delivery as well as on-site clinical mentoring and technical assistance in 81 facilities in five regions of Namibia. I-TECH supports key evidence-based strategies such as provider-initiated HIV counseling and testing, eMTCT, and decentralization of ART services to the clinic.
In collaboration with the MoHSS, I-TECH is implementing “Treatment for All” guidelines (December 2016), an HIV care and treatment approach that initiates patients on lifelong antiretroviral therapy as soon as they test HIV-positive. I-TECH has developed an interactive education and counseling intervention, ARVs and Healthy Me, for health care workers to support HIV-positive patients in attaining good adherence and engagement in care.
To improve the quality of data for use in clinical decision-making, I-TECH actively participates in national technical working groups and advisory committees, and conducts rigorous monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to build awareness and buy-in for data quality and date use among site-level managers and health care workers.
Strategic Information in Ukraine
I-TECH in Ukraine has worked to implement the Training System Monitoring and Reporting Tool (TrainSMART) via its partners, supporting adaptation of the tool per partners’ specifications and training stakeholders on its use since 2013.
Nancy Puttkammer
Nancy Puttkammer is an Acting Assistant Professor within the Department of Global Health at University of Washington and is the faculty co-lead of the Digital Initiatives Group at I-TECH (DIGI). Her interests are in strengthening health information systems and promoting data use and for quality improvement of health programs in resource-limited settings. She is trained as a health services researcher, specializing in using observational, routinely-collected data from electronic medical records (EMRs) to strengthen HIV care and treatment programs.
In her capacity as a Research and Evaluation Advisor at the International Training and Education Center for Health, Dr. Puttkammer works with informatics and training projects in Haiti, Kenya, and South Africa to improve large-scale implementation of EMRs, evaluate data quality and data use, support data analyses, and develop capacity for data use and implementation science research among colleagues and counterparts. Dr. Puttkammer has a PhD in Health Services from the University of Washington and an MPH in Community Health Education from the University of California, Berkeley.
Program Highlights
Scott Barnhart
Scott Barnhart, MD, MPH, has an extensive background as Professor of Global Health and former Director of Global Health Programs for I-TECH at the University of Washington. He has had responsibility for leading nine country offices, projects in 14 countries, and more than 500 staff. This experience and training has included extensive clinical work, research and program management in pulmonary and environmental and occupational medicine, and more than eight years as Medical Director of a safety net/Level 1 Trauma Center hospital.
Ensuring health systems can quickly detect and respond to emerging health threats is a critical challenge in both domestic and global health. Dr. Barnhart’s major implementation projects include scale-up of voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) in Zimbabwe and Malawi, OpenMRS, and laboratory information systems. Dr. Barnhart deploys his expertise in multiple African countries and Haiti to strengthen health systems and health care.
A goal of Dr. Barnhart’s work is to promote country-led, country owned sustainable development. Consistent with the principles of the Paris Declaration, the goal is to transition the bulk of development work and the associated leadership, ownership, technical direction and control of funding into the countries where development occurs. This approach ensures that the entire continuum of skills necessary for development (technical expertise, administration (human resources, operations, and management and accountability for funds) is transitioned to local partners. A key indicator is to have 75% or more of a grant’s funding expended in-country on local programs and local citizens and to support the local economies in these highly resourced constrained countries. Dr. Barnhart has worked closely to advance this model through projects in Haiti with a goal to shift the majority of a project to a local organization and in Zimbabwe where the VMMC program is largely run through local partners.
Program Highlights