Through the delivery of systems for organisations including the South African Medical Research Council, Human Sciences Research Council, Stellenbosch University, the University of Washington and others, a common set of requirements has been defined which forms the basis of the Outreach platform.
Outreach is not designed to be a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, existing web and mobile components are combined with custom development to produce a solution which caters to the specific needs and focus of the organisation by enhancing the activities of Community Health Workers (CHWs).
The core requirements, on which many community care initiatives depend, typically include:
- A central patient record, which CHWs must be able to access and update from the field.
- Tracking of on-going patient interactions and the ability to schedule visits which correspond to patient milestones that have implicit uncertainty.
- Routine data collection for reporting, strategic decision-making and project monitoring & evaluation.
- CHW workload and efficacy monitoring.
- Patient adherence and treatment support.
- CHW visit support, where guidance on what activities, education and interventions are required for each visit is based on the patient's needs.
- Simple referral mechanisms to support referral from field to facility and vice versa.
- Algorithms and protocols to assist CHWs in making diagnoses where possible, as well as access to reference material.
In response to these requirements, Mobenzi Outreach lays the foundation for mobile-based community care which facilitates, amongst other capabilities:
- Mobile patient enrolment into a central database.
- Definition of flexible and custom data structures for storing patient records.
- Seamless integration of data collection and research activities into CHW visits.
- Design of diagnostics support tools enabling CHWs to identify and treat conditions.
- Remote consultations and referral of cases to specialists electronically.
- Scheduling of patient visits, preloaded with personalised protocols and instructions based on the patient's needs and profile.
- Coordination of CHW activities, recording tasks, monitoring workload and verifying .
- Support for over 300 handset models, including most low-cost feature phones.
