The enormity and severity of the West African Ebola epidemic that began in 2014 is hard to fathom. Over 10,000 people died with hundreds of thousands deeply affected by loss. In treating any medical condition, information is needed to provide adequate care, but when it’s an epidemic so severe, so dangerous and so fast-moving, it’s required more than ever. Ebola creates enormous barriers for patient care. It’s communicability means those who directly treat patients within the “Red Zone” must take extreme precautions. The lack of knowledge about who is infected and what constitutes effective treatment — not to mention the swift and severe toll it takes on the human body — makes caring for those affected extremely difficult...
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
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Fighting Ebola with Open Source Collaboration
How A Free Mobile App Fights Ebola And Other Global Epidemics
The enormity and severity of the West African Ebola epidemic that began in 2014 is hard to fathom. The outbreak resulted in more than 11,000 deaths, and hundreds of thousands of people affected by loss. Providing adequate care for any medical condition depends on information, but even more so when dealing with an epidemic that is as severe, dangerous, and fast-moving as Ebola. This is the story of how a dispersed global health IT community banded together to solve the enormous, unique information challenges presented by Ebola...
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Open source EHR platform tailored to treat Ebola patients
An open-source electronic health record system developed to treat Ebola patients during the recent epidemic in West Africa is being touted as a potential solution for clinical data collection in highly infectious environments and resource-constrained healthcare settings. Implemented two years ago at Save the Children International’s Kerry Town Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone, the EHR leverages a Java-based web application called OpenMRS that enables the design of a customized medical records system with no programming.
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Science Journal Examines Key Role of Open Source EHR in Ending Ebola Epidemic in Sierra Leone
The prestigious, open access, Journal of Medical Internet Research recently published a study looking at the effectiveness of OpenMRS’ use during the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The article highlights the work of a team who developed new user-interface components for OpenMRS and rapidly deployed the system in an Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) in Sierra Leone. The team, composed of members from OpenMRS, Save the Children International, Thoughtworks, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Partners In Health, University of Leeds, and Columbia University. The team came together in response to an urgent request for healthIT from colleagues at Save the Children International to develop an EHR suitable for deployment in a new Ebola treatment Centre being set up in Kerry Town outside the capital, Freetown.
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