Implementing e-health in Malawi

Press release from PLOS Medicine

2013-03-13

(Press-News.org) In low-income countries a substantial challenge in planning and delivering healthcare is the accurate assessment of disease burden. In this week's PLOS Medicine, Miguel SanJoaquin from the University of Malawi College of Medicine and colleagues describe their experience of implementing an electronic patient record system in a large referral hospital in southern Malawi. The system, known as Surveillance Programme of IN-patients and Epidemiology (SPINE), is used to record patient details during consultations and this data can be used to monitor changing patterns of disease at the hospital.

The authors note, "[o]ne of the main obstacles in monitoring of the success of international public health targets, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), has been the lack of accurate monitoring and evaluation of disease burdens. Reliable and comparable information about the main causes of disease in populations and how these causes are changing, is a crucial input for debates about priorities in the health sector."

### Funding: This work has been supported by The Wellcome Trust (grant no 091947/Z/10/Z) and GIZ – German Agency of Development - (grant no. 09.2257.5-004.31). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation: SanJoaquin MA, Allain TJ, Molyneux ME, Benjamin L, Everett DB, et al. (2013) Surveillance Programme of IN-patients and Epidemiology (SPINE): Implementation of an Electronic Data Collection Tool within a Large Hospital in Malawi. PLoS Med 10(3): e1001400. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001400

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001400

Contact:

Miguel A. SanJoaquin
Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme
University of Malawi College of Medicine
Blantyre, Malawi
miguel.sanjoaquin@wolfson-oxford.com END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Using fat to fight brain cancer

2013-03-13

In laboratory studies, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found that stem cells from a patient's own fat may have the potential to deliver new treatments directly into the brain after the surgical removal of a glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor. The investigators say so-called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have an unexplained ability to seek out damaged cells, such as those involved in cancer, and may provide clinicians a new tool for accessing difficult-to-reach parts of the brain where cancer cells can hide and proliferate anew. The ...

Despite weight gain, quitting smoking associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease

2013-03-13

Among adults without diabetes, quitting smoking, compared with continuing smoking, was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease despite subsequent weight gain, according to a study appearing in the March 13 issue of JAMA. "Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable mortality in the United States and a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Smoking cessation substantially reduces the risks of CVD; however, quitting smoking is associated with a small number of adverse health consequences, weight gain being one of smokers' major concerns," ...

Duration of breastfeeding during infancy does not reduce a child's risk of being overweight, obese

2013-03-13

In research that included nearly 14,000 healthy infants in Belarus, an intervention that succeeded in improving the duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding during infancy did not result in a lower risk of overweight or obesity among the children at age 11.5 years, according to a study appearing in the March 13 issue of JAMA. Observational studies suggest that greater duration and exclusivity of having been breastfed reduces child obesity risk. "However, breastfeeding and growth are socially patterned in many settings," and observed associations between these variables ...

Study examines outcomes for treatment of sleep apnea with primary care vs. specialist care

2013-03-13

Among patients who were identified as likely having moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, treatment based in primary care was not clinically inferior to treatment at a specialist sleep center for improvement in daytime sleepiness scores, according to a study appearing in the March 13 issue of JAMA. "Obstructive sleep apnea with accompanying daytime sleepiness was estimated during the early 1990s to affect between 2 percent and 4 percent of middle-aged adults. With growing awareness of the public health implications of untreated disease and rising obesity rates ...

Major bleeding following PCI associated with increased risk of death

2013-03-13

In a study that included 3.3 million percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI; procedures such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement used to open narrowed coronary arteries) procedures, major bleeding after PCI was associated with significantly increased in-hospital mortality, with an estimated 12 percent of deaths after PCI related to bleeding complications, according to a study appearing in the March 13 issue of JAMA. "Bleeding represents the most common noncardiac complication of PCI. Postprocedural bleeding is associated with short- and long-term death, nonfatal ...

Weight gain after quitting smoking does not negate health benefits

2013-03-13

An analysis of data from the Framingham Offspring Study – a long-term study that follows children of participants in the original Framingham Heart Study – may have answered a question that has troubled individuals considering stopping smoking: do the health effects of any weight gained after quitting outweigh the known cardiovascular benefits of smoking cessation? The report in the March 13 issue of JAMA concludes that the benefits of stopping smoking far exceed any weight-gain associated risk. "Among people without diabetes, those who stopped smoking had a 50 percent ...

Fertility after ectopic pregnancy: Study finds reassuring evidence on different treatments

2013-03-13

The first randomised trial to compare treatments for ectopic pregnancies has found no significant differences in subsequent fertility between medical treatment and conservative surgery on one hand, and conservative or radical surgery on the other. The study, which is published online today (Wednesday) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction [1], compared three ways of treating an ectopic pregnancy: medically by methotrexate injection to interrupt pregnancy in the Fallopian tube; conservative surgery, which preserves the Fallopian tube (known ...

Researchers find link between low cognitive score and risk of brain injury

2013-03-13

It is estimated that there are 10 million cases of traumatic brain injury globally every year with mild traumatic brain injuries being responsible for 70-90% of these. Incidence is highest among young males. Current literature suggests that mild traumatic brain injuries cause changes in brain tissues and have important long-term consequences on cognitive function. Deficits have been described in attention, memory, verbal learning and processing speed and may occur in 15-25% of those suffering one of these injuries. However, little is known about population-wide cognitive ...

When hungry, Gulf of Mexico algae go toxic

2013-03-13

When Gulf of Mexico algae don't get enough nutrients, they focus their remaining energy on becoming more and more poisonous to ensure their survival, according to a new study by scientists from North Carolina State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The study shows that harmful and ubiquitous Karenia brevis algae, which cause red tide blooms across the Gulf of Mexico, become two to seven times more toxic when levels of phosphorus, a major algal nutrient found in fertilizers and human waste, are low. Like wearing a suit of armor, producing ...

Marine diversity study proves value of citizen science

2013-03-13

Citizen science surveys compare well with traditional scientific methods when it comes to monitoring species biodiversity – according to new research from the University of East Anglia. Research published today in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution shows that methods to record marine diversity used by amateurs returned results consistent with techniques favoured by peer-reviewed science. The findings give weight to the growing phenomenon of citizen science, which sees data crowd-sourced from an army of avid twitchers, divers, walkers and other wildlife enthusiasts. ...

Implementing e-health in Malawi

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: