The programme is now using the Frontline SMS Disease Surveillance System, that makes use of mobile telephony to send information through short messages.
In an interview, the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare’s Director of Epidemiology and Disease Control, Portia Manangazira, said the implementation of the Frontline SMS technology has reduced bottlenecks in the delivery of health services.
“Traditionally, we used telephone (landlines) and two-way-radio systems to communicate with 1 500 health institutions in our 62 health districts,” she said.
Manangazira added that rural health systems were the most affected owing to dilapidating communication infrastructure.
“The systems had not only become outdated and unserviceable but also unreliable resulting in fewer and fewer health clinics managing to report disease outbreaks on time, if at all.”
Manangazira said the ministry distributed 1 200 basic 3G Nokia mobile phones and lines throughout the country’s health institutions.
Frontline SMS uses a regular desktop computer or mobile phone connected with a 3G device or modem into a gateway for sending and receiving SMS messages.
It has modules that can be used to design forms for easier collection of data.
“The SMS system gets rid of using volumes of files to relay information which is cumbersome and costly to transport some of the data,” said Manangazira.
She said the new system had facilitated data analysis and deliberations at a district level.
“Our District Medical Officers, Health Information Officers and Environment Health Supervisors can now discuss and deliberate data collected at a district level as both current and previous records are easily accessible,” Manangazira said.
Apart from the mobile phones, Manangazira said Health Information Officers in all districts received a computer and internet connections.
“So far all HIOs at district level received a computer and dongle that allows them to be on the internet anytime to communicate effectively and eventually, every DMO and EHS would have computers and access to internet to make their work easy,” she said.
Post published in: News