Last month Dr Ali Khashan and Dr Simon Woodworth travelled to the Kilimanjaro Region of Northern Tanzania as part of the Kilimanjaro ULTRA 2020 project funded by COALESCE. The ULTRA app is currently being trialed across Kilimanjaro and was designed to improve health outcomes of mothers and babies by enabling health officials to accurately record key data so that they can establish targeted intervention strategies aimed at improving maternal healthcare.
Dr Ali Khashan: “We had an exciting visit to our colleagues at KCMC, where we visited several healthcare facilities across the region and had meetings with healthcare professionals including research team lead Dr Blandina Mmbaga and the regional reproductive health officer Gaudensia Olomi. We have learnt a lot about the maternal health care services in the region, where we will pilot the ULTRA App in the next two years. We very much look forward for our future visits.”
Dr Simon Woodworth: “The ULTRA App has the potential to replace existing paper based maternal tracking systems with an electronic system that is easier to use, searchable, and which will provide up to date data to nurses, clinicians and decision makers in the Kilimajaro Regional Health System.”
Dr Blandina Mmgaba: “The sites visits by Dr Ali Khashan, Dr.Simon Woodworth and the ULTRA 2020 study team has shown a snapshot of the need for digital birth registry, the HMIS in practice needs modification to incorporate all necessary variables in the stages of RCH from Antenatal to Postnatal services. For future scale up and sustainability the need to involve the Ministry of Health is crucial. We have started working with the Regional Administrative Secretary through the Regional Medical Officer who is ready to support the digitization of the birth registry within the selected health facilities in the region.”
Learn more about the Kilimanjaro Ultra 2020 project here
