Sierra Leone

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Nineteen Countries Save $149 Million With Open Source Health Workforce Information Systems

Staff Writer | Capacity Plus | March 6, 2014

Nineteen countries are now using iHRIS, a free and open source human resources information system, to support over 810,000 health worker records. It would cost more than $149 million in licensing fees alone for these countries to support a similar number of records with a proprietary system purchased from for-profit companies.

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Open Government Partnership Celebrates Open Innovation in Africa

As diverse delegates gather in Cape Town this week for the OGP regional meeting, we reflect on open innovation, ODI projects and promising initiatives in the continent. This week, South Africa hosts the third Open Government Partnership (OGP) Africa Regional Meeting 2016. The two-day event brings together a wide range of delegates from African governments and civil society, startups and international organisations. It offers a platform to share lessons from programmes across the continent, with a particular focus on promoting sustainable development...

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Open source EHR platform tailored to treat Ebola patients

Greg Slabodkin | Health Data Management | August 23, 2017

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.

Team Bahmni at the OpenMRS Worldwide Summit

ThoughtWorks first began contributing to OpenMRS in 2006 and since that time, we've had over fifty committers to OpenMRS in GitHub. Incidentally, one in every seven OpenMRS contributor in GitHub is a ThoughtWorker! Naturally, in 2013, when we had the opportunity to build Bahmni, an open source hospital information system, we choose OpenMRS as the underlying Electronic Medical Records System (EMR). Bahmni leverages the mature data model and APIs of OpenMRS, whilst providing an out-of-the-box system that can be immediately used by hospitals.

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The FrontlineSMS: Credit Story

Sharon Langevin | FrontlineSMS | February 16, 2011

Mobile money is spreading quickly across the globe. The ability to transfer funds from a mobile handset has been hailed as the key to extending financial services to the base of the pyramid. Read More »

This Aid Agency Is Using Chatbots to Beat World Hunger

Lynset Chutel | Quartz | September 4, 2017

Smartphones and chatbots have made services from banking to transportation more accessible across Africa. Now, aid agencies are hoping they can do the same with food.
The UN’s World Food Program (WFP), has been experimenting with text and Facebook messenger chatbots to monitor food insecurity in hard-to-reach areas, turning smartphones and social media into lifelines for the most vulnerable of refugees...

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US Lawmaker: Ban Travel To US From Ebola-Stricken Countries

James Butty | Voice of America | July 31, 2014

A U.S. congressman has asked the Obama administration to impose an immediate travel ban on the citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as on foreigners who have visited those countries, to contain the spread of Ebola to the United States...

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Using Open-Source Mapping To Help Stop Ebola

Lou Del Bello | SciDev.Net | June 9, 2014

Last week, 5 June, aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières reported new cases in the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The priority for NGOs and health workers is to deliver appropriate aid in the fastest and most effective way. To do so, it is vital to have a clear picture of the area affected by Ebola and relevant trends. Read More »

WHO Declares Ebola An International Health Emergency

The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) has proclaimed the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, triggering an urgent international step-up in the response to the crisis, which it now sees as a serious threat to other countries, too. Read More »

World's Largest Open Source Health Information Technology Project Tackles Ebola

Press Release | Indiana University | April 27, 2015

"An effective, longitudinal medical record is an essential requirement for Ebola treatment and these records can't be carried in and out of infected areas. A networked electronic medical record is essential--and OpenMRS offers a cost-effective, well-tested system that has been deployed in multiple sites in dozens of countries in a sustainable way," said OpenMRS co-founder and project leader Paul Biondich, M.D., a Regenstrief Institute investigator and Indiana University School of Medicine associate professor of pediatrics.

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‘Entire Villages Disappeared’: Ebola Deaths In Sierra Leone ‘Underreported’

Staff Writer | RT News | October 1, 2014

Ebola’s toll on Sierra Leone is much greater than previously thought, with entire villages killed off by the virus. This means up to 20,000 people could have succumbed to the disease by now, a senior coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) believes...

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