Category: Labtracker Electronic Medical Record Project
July 22 Labtracker Update
Update for the Week
This past week I spent working with Rajiv and Malick at Cesac clinic and at Point G as well as doing work with LabTracker. It is my pleasure to report that Dr. Dao of Point G is doing a stupendous job with LabTracker. I was astonished to find out that he has 497 patients in his computer. Not only were they in his computer, but he was using the program it’s fullest capacity, taking advantage of all of features. I also spent time doing the legwork regarding the EMR Mali publication. I am working on putting together a format a questionnaire which I could email the clinicians and obtain an electronic response. I am also considering making up an online survey program and having all of the statistics completed for me once all of the clinicians have finished the survey. There is good news on the Malick and Rajiv front, but I will let Rajiv fill you in. GAIA will be quite happy and I’m sure their proposed program is not only plausible but its a shame it wasn’t thought up sooner. I have also been working with Geekcore and learning how we could possibly team up in the future on projects.
July 17th Labtracker Update
Update for the Week
This past week, I visited Point G, Cesac, and Gabriel Toure. There is good news for two of the clinics and not so great news for the other. After visiting with Dr. Dao (at Point G), he had reached the maximum capacity of his patients. He was busy at the schedualed meeting (due to unforseen circumstances) and reschedualed for this coming week for inhouse training. At that time, I plan to update his software, and license agreement for LabTracker. Clinic 2, Gabriel Toure. Also good news, Dr. Yousouff Toure has done a meticulous job of maintaing his EMR. As of right now he has over 200 patients. Each of which are entered beautifully into LabTracker. I am throughly impressed. Now the bad news, Cesac has done absolutely nothing. I feel that giving the computer to the Pharmacist was a bad idea. After talking with Malick about this, we’re going to start anew (after we speak to the chief of medicine) and give the computer to a physician to track the patients.
This week, there were 16 CD4 count results that came in to the clinic…as Malick and Daou had each of the patients in the office, I was working simultaneously to get their results into the computer. It worked out extremely well, and I felt very accomplished because approximately 80% of the patients with the most recent test results were patients I had already put into the computer from a few days before. After I finished that, Malick and Daou were pretty incredulous that I had done it that fast! I tried to explain to them that soon they will be able to work just as fast on the computer…but I’m pretty sure a bunch got lost in translation.
July 9th Labtracker Update
Last week I spent time in Sikoroni with Ali Bicki. I went through and cleaned Dr. Daou’s computer. Which I am sorry to say must have had a small accident. The last time I was there, the screen casing was broken on the IBM. It’s still useable but it has seen better days. I was at Geekcore last week for an entire morning remedying a problem with Sow’s computer. The OS became corrupted and everything failed. After about 5 hours the computer was back in shape and ready to go. I’ve also been back and forth from Dr. Sow’s office . Working with him and trying to get a feel as to how I could best use Labtracker within his clinics and smoothing out GAIA’s connection with his district in Bamako. As in my last email\, he had me do rounds in his building with Norton and Labtracker. I spoke with Hank head today, It was a great conversation, I think we can finally get LT on the ground here in Bamako. Thanks.
Jared Meshekow
Boston University
Labtracker Project Overview
Labtracker Project
Jared Meshekow founded GAIA at Boston University in 2005. He currently enrolled in Boston University’s B.S. / M.P.H program concentrating in Human Physiology and Epidemiology. He has been involved with GAIA, the Providence chapter, since 2002. In the summer of 2004, with six donated laptops and an initial subscription to the LabTracker® Software system, Jared traveled to Mali take part in a pilot program to test the utilization of LabTracker, a unique program which allows for the tracking of HIV-positive patients, medication usage, lab-results, and other relevant medical data. This application is extremely effective, providing a preliminary basis in which large amounts of clinical information can be isolated and analyzed. Currently, He is in Mali implementing the continued distribution of the LabTracker® Software. His responsibilities consist of training clinicians to use LabTracker to maximize the electronic patient record system, translating the LabTracker system to French, and working in conjunction with GeekCore to set up an improved medical data info-structure within the city of Bamako and beyond. With a functional Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system in Mali, clinicians will be able to provide superior healthcare to patients. The LabTracker system will function as the keystone in the construction of a national wide electronic medical record system, a necessity in providing the best healthcare possible.