Claim Mobile

Claim Mobile is a multi-disciplinary research project that endeavors to understand how the introduction of information technologies changes the practice of healthcare in Uganda, particularly in the context of the Uganda Output Based Aid project. Through qualitative research methods, and the use of cultural probes in the form of a mobile claims processing system, we look at the relationships between the management agency that runs the OBA project and the participating health facilities, as well as the health information management practices within the facilities themselves.

HealthyLife is a voucher program that reimburses existing service providers for services rendered. However, service providers are geographically distant, program management is information intensive and errors and other sources of delay affect service provision, quality of care, and payment timeliness. Communication is key to the program’s success – and the management agency seeks to learn how ICTs can be used cost-effectively to improve relations with each of the participating health facilities, while also allowing them to scale up the program.

As part of the research we are deploying Asus EeePCs and Palm Treos in 9 health facilities, both of which have software that will permit remote submission of claims to the management agency. In addition, we will be conducting surveys in and monitoring 9 control facilities.  To support this project, we are developing a number of software and documentation components:

Claim Mobile

Claim Mobile is a dual web and mobile based platform designed to enable service providers to use mobile phones to submit formerly paper based claims digitally to a web-based application. The web application is additionally designed to cope with Internet infrastructure limitations found in Mbarara, Uganda, and supports asynchronous synchronization between locally and globally available web server, to enable access to claims data even when Internet access may be prohibitively slow or unavailable.

Medical Library

Each netbook and Palm phone will be pre-equipped with a set of open-source medical books and papers. The netbook will also have a web interface that can be used to help the health worker in the facility easily navigate the library.

Introduction to Computing for Health Workers

While computing courses are widely available throughout Uganda, health practitioners often find that they don’t have time to attend them, especially if they work in villages distant from the major towns where the courses are held. Furthermore, the training courses are general purpose – and give basic overviews of Excel and Word, but might not teach skills targeted to what health workers need for running their health facilities.  We are developing a targeted training manual, a book, that can be used to teach health facility owners computer basics, and how to use Excel and Word specifically for the tasks relevant to them: photo management for documentation of referral cases, patient registers, accounting, inventory management, and basic reports generation.