Skip to Main Content
Submit your project or idea
Co-create with community
20 votes
Refine your idea
In refinement
Submit your final proposal
Jury review (pending)
In refinement
This idea is in the final stage of refinement. If you are inspired by the idea, please continue helping the idea owner with your insights.
Thanks for your vote
This voting milestone has now ended, and the idea has progressed to a private milestone
Return to idea list
Thanks for approving the idea
This milestone has now ended, and the idea has progressed to a private milestone
Return to idea list

Health System Integrated data repository

by chifundo phiri | May 13, 2020 | in Digital change-maker challenge | Statistics and indicators

 

We will develop an Integrated data repository also known as a Data Warehouse that will be hosted at the Headquarter of Ministry of Health Zambia. An Integrated data repository is a central repository of integrated data from one or more disparate sources. The Integrated data repository implemented will solve a variant of problems ranging from identity management, protection of confidentiality, decision making and accountability, semantic and syntactic comparability of data from different sources and most importantly convenient and flexible query. The data repository will include operational data stores, clinical data warehouse, clinical data marts, Clinical registration data, Laboratory testing data and Pharmaceutical drugs consumption and availability data. The Integrated data repository will store data from disparate HMIS systems in Zambia.

The disparate HMIS system in Zambia are as follows.

  1. Smart-Care
  2. DISA

 

The pharmaceutical data will be collected from the Logistical Management Information system (LMIS).

Data extracted from the disparate HMIS systems will be uploaded in the integrated data repository manually in the first phase of the project implementation. The manual process will involve the manual upload of the data on to the integrated repository from the Disparate HMIS system on a Monthly basis.

The data uploaded on the Integrated data repository will be cleansed, compared with other data from different sources, analyzed and displayed on to a Dashboard.

 

The following training will be offered to MOH staff to help them improve the utilization of HMIS data and ensuring user friendly dash boards to enhance utility.

  1. Data extraction using SQL queries
  2. Data Warehousing
  3. Analyzing and Visualization of Data using Power BI
  4. Health Level Seven (HL7) international standards

 

The results of the implementation of the data management project will be as follows:

  1. Improvement of Health system data generation and utilization,
  2. Quicken reporting and availability of data for decision making by MOH,
  3. Availability of data for quality service delivery and clinical decision-making,
  4. Identifying research gaps and action areas, including guiding resource allocation.

 

In phase 2 of the project, we will develop an interface that will be pulling data from disparate HMIS systems to the integrate data repository automatically conforming to the Health Level Seven (HL7) protocol.

Define three specific objectives that you would like to achieve with your proposal.

The Objective I would like to Improve are as follows

  • Health information systems support to improve generation and utilization of reliable health management information system (HMIS) data.
  • Support for analyzing and sharing of data for decision-making and accountability 
  • Quicken reporting and availability of data for decision making by MOH
  • Availability of data for quality service delivery and clinical decision-making
  • Identifying research gaps and action areas, including guiding resource allocation.

What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

The problems my idea is trying to fix are as follows.

1. Provide support to the different levels of government in prioritization of activities based on the identification of the causes and persistent gaps, e.g. birth asphyxia and identification of newborn danger signs in the community, in tracking relevant indicators, and, based on this information, contribute to the strengthening of the required interventions 

 

2. Working in partnership with the MOH, build their capacity at all levels in knowledge management, utilization of data to inform decision making, and developing strategies for improvement, including addressing underserved populations.

3. Support the Government plans to conduct operations research to answer questions of interest through research activities embedded in ongoing program operations.

4. Disseminate knowledge generated by learning to activity stakeholders, partners, and collaborators in an appropriate forum and format so that it may be translated into decisions and actions that enhance the success of approaches and interventions designed to achieve common intermediate results.

5. Apply actionable information and knowledge gained from collaborating partners to activity implementation to improve results

What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?

The opportunities I am leveraging to address the challenges is by storing Data from all the Health Management Information system that is collected by different Government implementing partners in one location (Data Warehouse). If this data can be stored in a data warehouse analysis can cleaning can be done by Government staff. The information can help improve and quicken decision making by the Government.

Share your story (your narrative)

Our Government, Health system data has to be collected by Implementing partners that work for the government and shared to the Ministry of Health. My idea is to allow the Government to host an integrated repository that will be pulling data from all servers hosted by implementing partners. The Government will have access to all the information in a blink of an eye. This information will help the Government decision making and can be also used to research.

 

Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.

No Additional Information to be shared

Public (13)
You will need to login to post a comment
Patrick Obumselu May 14, 2020

Nice idea, but make it more plain so that those who are not conversant with your field can understand better.

Nivashini Rave Rattey May 20, 2020

Hi chifundo phiri,

Thanks for sharing the overview of your idea. Please upload your image so that we know who we are cocreating with.

Your overview is too technical. Keep in mind that to get the "buy-in" from other people, it is essential to establish a common interest. You will therefore have to keep the information simple and comprehensible.

Currently, the "What", "Why (justifications backed with real data)", "Who (target audience)" and "How" do not stand out. So, you've lost my attention.

The same can be applied to your story as well. Please download the "Storytelling toolkit" and re-write your narration. A story must have clear message/call-to-action to the intended audience, and get them hooked via concrete scientific evidence/data and emotional binders. Right now, I see none in your story.

Your idea is good. But try and refine it based on the comments above so that it have an impact.

Users tagged:

Avatar for chifundo phiri chifundo phiri

chifundo phiri Jul 7, 2020

Hi I have uploaded my image and thank you for the advise. I will try to simplify the overview.

EUNICE KAJALA Jun 29, 2020

Hi Chifundo,
You have a good presentation on how you're going to address the data problems under the MOH- Zambia, but, you haven't mentioned what specific data gaps or problems do you have and at what level? Primary health care, secondary health care, Tertiary level and the Ministry of Health.

chifundo phiri Jul 7, 2020

the idea basically address all data gaps from primary health care, secondary, Tertiary level and Ministry.

Basically the gap starts at the facility, then at the district, at the provincial office and lastly the ministry.

Basically the repository can be used to allow for decisions and can help all levels of the ministry structure

Nivashini Rave Rattey Jul 16, 2020

The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.

Nivashini Rave Rattey Jul 16, 2020

Status label added: Community feedback received

Thomas Mueller Jul 16, 2020

I can assume that you would need to integrate not only the two mentioned systems but a lot of other systems ad platform such as for medical aid, hospital systems, doctors systems etc. How do you like to achieve this in an efficient and effective way? We have solved a similar issue in the hospitality and tourism sector. If you are interested we can chat on this challenge.

chifundo phiri Jul 17, 2020

Dear Thomas thank you for opportunity and advise and i am interested on the chat. Kindly avail time when you will be free to chat.

On the idea basically we have to have a standard format of extracting data from the different medical systems than once that is done upload the extracted data by weekly or monthly on the central repository were scabbing, data modeling, analysis and display of the data on a dashboard will be achieved. This is phase one.

In Phase two we will use Iguana and standardize the file format from the different medical systems using HL7. The iguana will facilitate the automatic data extraction from the different medical systems that will have to be available online using the internet. For servers that will not have internet capability data will have to be extracted and uploaded on a secured shared drive. Once the extraction is done by the iguana the data will be updated in to tables on an SQL database on the central server. At this time scabbing of the data, data modeling, analysis and display on the data on a dashboard using Power BI will be achieved.

Waiting to here from you.

Thank you

Thomas Mueller Jul 17, 2020

Thank you very much Chifundo. The challenge will be to get all the vendors of all the systems provide a standard data format you describe. Usually they keep that proprietary in order to differentiate themselves or make it more difficult to migrate or integrate. This is why we have the integration engine for the hospitality and tourism sector where we have the same challenge.

James Kiruri Jul 17, 2020

Hi Chifundo, great idea. What data gaps will you be addressing

chifundo phiri Jul 19, 2020

the gap is at the facility, district, province and headquarters. The gaps at the facility are us follows unavailable information concerning activities the activities at the facility in real-time. an example is how many patients has the facility had in the last three months, quantified drug dispensation report for the last month. for the district activities in the facilities within the district which facility is consuming more particular drug, which facility had the highest patient visit. for the headquarters is to access the information above in realtime.
Currently, we have independent systems operating and the ministry has to get reports from these systems compiled by implementation partners of the government. there is no dashboard to display all this information under one location. someone has to work himself around to get such information. with the central repository, this will be in the past and information will be really available for all levels.

Nelson Milla Jul 20, 2020

Hello Chifundo,

Hope you are doing well. I am very happy to see an idea with such potential, and to be able to contribute a little to help you polish it.

I have a few questions that may help us get to know your idea a lot better:
1- Do you have any key associations with your local governement? It may be very hard from a company perspective to obtain data from the public sector, refactor and resell it. Are you part of the public sector in your country? If not, it would be great to hear your strategy to get them to lend their data.

2- When you talk about hosting such sensitive data as medical records of an entire country within a facility, you need to talk about security. A minor slip could cause an entire nation health vulnerabilities end up in wrong hands. What are the security standards you are working with?

3- Business model. I am very interested in this one particularly because I see you have a really strong technical side. How are you going to mantain this project afloat? If your government is your only client you are gambling with the project, because if you lose them you lose it all. Can this help private healthcare? Can this scale well into neighbour countries? What is so unique about your project that will make me, as the government, want to hire you instead of doing it myself?

I hope my questions are of help, I will keep an eye on this project and I hope to get to know it better. Keep working hard!

Kindest regards,
Nelson Milla.

Users tagged:

Avatar for chifundo phiri chifundo phiri

chifundo phiri Jul 20, 2020

Hi Nelson,

Thank you again for this talk.

Answers to the questions

Question 1
Yes, I have key associates in the ministry. I am also part of an institution that works lot with the government. There are two options to this and I have thought of these options extensively. Option 1 is to have the project given to the government and find partners that can support the project because this involves improving the health services and it's for the community.
Option 2 is using my associates by engaging them and through government institution ZICTA. I was one of the winners for a challenge competition and they have given as privileges to help open doors to engage governments
I am also interested in engaging in private hospitals.


Question 2

The data will be hosted at the government ministry headquarters data centre. The centre has ICT security features installed and is the best place to host the server. Other security features will be done through the iguana and power BI.

Question 3

My project is two-sided helping the community build better health service for the people and by doing so call OTHER institution to partner with me and implement this project.
I would love it be a business but health comes first and I think that the communicate in particular governments can benefit from the project in there decision making.

What is unique about my project is that in Zambia this has never been implemented and it calls for people who have a certain skill in IT.
Why you should hire me is that I have the skill, the idea is brilliant and to execute this project you need the person who has the vision of the project lastly the benefits of the project is with the government information will be really available to help make the decision.

Basically I know with your experience in promoting the business you can help me promote this business. I would also love that this is seen as a service to help community health. and usually, such ideas should be funded making it very difficult start-up and implement. Funding is very difficult to find with brilliant minds like yourself you can help and advise on the best approach for this proposal

Nelson Milla Jul 23, 2020

Hello Chifundo,

Hope you are doing well. I forgot to mention before, that I am your assigned mentor. Can you please write to me at nelson.milla@startupweekend.org so we can get in contact 1 on 1. Kind regards.

Users tagged:

Avatar for chifundo phiri chifundo phiri

James Kiruri Jul 21, 2020

Hi Chifundo, kindly review my idea Teleeza so that I can refine it further

Victoria Masso Jul 21, 2020

Status label added: Mentor feedback received

Fahmida Hossain Jul 24, 2020

Hello chifundo, Can you please simplify your idea. I think the idea seems too technical to me.

Alberto Farca Aug 1, 2020

Dear Chifundo,

Congratulations on your proposal. I am a firm believer that being able to generate and use quality data is vital to make better decisions. This is especially true for the health sector. As others have commented I would suggest that your final proposal is less technical. Maybe adding a few practical examples regarding what you want to achieve would illustrate your ideas potential.

Another suggestion would be to clarify if your proposal involves the collection and storage of data or if it also includes a dashboard or other tools to analyze this information.

Best regards and congratulations on your idea.

Tafadzwa Chikwereti Aug 16, 2020

Hello ! Chifundo

I would like like to share the following with you:

I was about to share a quote that came in my mind a few seconds ago. Suddenly I remembered what Prof. Dr. Günter Faltin wrote." simplicity is a good principle. Complexity is the entrepreneur's enemy. If you believe that "paring down" and "simplicity" are too basic, not impressive enough, and not at all grand, then remember Leonardo Davinci: " Simplicity is the ultimate perfection".

It came to my mind that my quote had already been said by others, several times and in many different ways. But when did they say the quote, did they use the same words as mine, what were the circumstances? How the author did grew up? Was he black or white? A man or female, and many more questions. When I realized that the combinatorial analysis still offers unlimited scope, I silently breathed a sigh of relief. The market is never saturated for entrepreneurs, it requires a dose of simplicity to innovate and propose a sustainable solution while using available material, inclusive what others already used.

Support us with votes and comments, thank you.