Christmas in Bumwalukani, Uganda
Bass Stewart • December 23, 2015
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A church, in a remote community, where villagers will spend time on Christmas Day
On my (Dr Bill Tams) visit to Bumwalukani Clinic, Uganda, earlier this month, I asked the staff about their Christmas traditions. The Christian religion is very important to people here and it plays a large part at Christmas. On Christmas Day many will visit their church up to 5 times. As for a Christmas meal, Robert, who works in the clinic, told us that he and his neighbours save up during the year to buy a cow. The cow is shared amongst the neighbours and is eaten on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with their families. Meat is quite a luxury here as there are no fridges and often no power. For Christmas gifts, the children are bought clothes.We, at EMR4DW, will be thinking about all our friends in Uganda, who have worked so hard using our EMR4DW system.Mulembe everyone!
A boy looking after his little brother
Fundraising and Events
The Development Team is always busy!
Dr Elizabeth and Mark Fowler are back in Uganda this week. Here they are with Henry Muwonge from Uganda UK Health Alliance at the British High Commission in Kampala. They had a positive meeting with Health Policy Officer Brenda Kabibi OutreachEMR look forward to exploring further potential partnerships with the BHC. Check facebook for more updates. https://uukha.org
OutreachEMR are delighted to be recognised by and work with HIFA to achieve our common goals
New EMR Server in Eastern Uganda
Our name may change but we don't!
All at EMR4DW, Medical Records Save Lives, are delighted to congratulate Enoch Magala, and the whole team of Centre for Youth Driven Development Initiatives (CFYDDI). On the opening of their clinic in Jinja Uganda this month. Several of us have been able to visit Enoch and witness the building of this wonderful facility. I visited along with EMR4DW founder’s Dr Peter Smith and Bass Stewart in 2018, to give advice and demonstrate EMR4DW to the enthusiastic staff.
We might be in lockdown in the UK, but the picture shows our Ugandan Senior Ambassador, Julius Okello who spent 2 days helping set up EMR4DW and give staff training.
Don’t look so worried everyone!! Most clinics tell us staff, with no previous computer skills, can learn the basics in a couple of days. So it will get better!
We all wish you the absolute best of luck and are certain this clinic along with EMR4DW electronic medical records will only help in the wonderful work you do.
Watch this blog for further updates.
The Covid pandemic has made 2020 a very difficult year for the whole world. Clinics using EMR4DW are often at the forefront of such difficulties. They are often working in remote poorly funded areas making their work, caring for their community, extremely challenging. Our thoughts. prayers and best wishes go out to every one of them. There is a glint of hope for the future as research on treatment of covid-19 showing simple inexpensive treatments can help as well as vaccines developed, in Oxford, that, I understand, have promised to be available to all countries at no profit. We hope the WHO can help to roll this out to all vulnerable people wherever they are. One thing we are proud of is that our computer software EMR4DW is able to code Covid-19 as a disease allowing our clinics to monitor case numbers in their communities and inform health departments quickly and accurately. When the vaccines are available every clinic will be able to document every covid-19 vaccine given. Let's hope it is soon! Keep up the good work in 2021.
In coping with COVID-19 the World Health Organisation said the only way to deal with the virus is to Test,Test and keep Testing. We at EMR4DW have been in lock-down at home for some weeks but have been using the time to benefit our users by listening to the WHO. We have been testing EMR4DW Version 4.0 to ensure it is working perfectly before we roll out our implementation phase later this year. The picture shows one of our regular System Development ZOOM meetings, where we work through our testing programme and plan how we can include our User Manual within the system on screen. I know some clinics are desperate to access the latest version of EMR4DW and we are very keen that you get it but feel time spent testing now will benefit everyone once we are certain it is ready. Watch this space for further updates.
Our thoughts have been with ALL our clinics around the world but this message from Uganda did lift our spirits! Maegan Hubbard told us her husband Dr. Emma has been using EMR4DW for all the Covid suspects in Manafwa Uganda! He’s been using it to report to the Task Force weekly and track all the patients on self quarantine and institutional quarantine. It’s made life so much easier than a spreadsheet. Each patient has a COVID Health ID to clearly identify them. EMR4DW has improved search facilities for diseases and with direct links to data collecting hubs via DHIS2 for fast and accurate data transfer. Thanks Maegan keep all your family safe and keep up the good work.
