Today during our weekly OpenMRS Implementers Forum, Ali Habib, Director of Informatics for Interactive Research and Development (IRD), gave a demo on IRD’s use of the MDR-TB module.
According to Ali, “Tajikistan has one of the highest rates of MDR-TB in the world, and there was a need for improved data collection and management for easier reporting and analysis.”
IRD led the project in Tajikistan, conducting a needs assessment this June, followed by a pilot implementation of the OpenMRS MDR-TB module in mid-November. The team conducted training on data entry and translated the module into Russian to correspond with the data the program collected. “We also implemented a phone-based directly observed therapy (DOT) system where volunteers go to patients’ homes with phones to collect data on medication intake, side effects, etc., and then send [data] over to the server using the mobile ‘mOpenMRS’ client that IRD adapted and the XForms module.”
Ali and the IRD team are continuing this project by working closely with staff in Tajikistan. “The success or failure now largely depends on the use of the system by staff, which is why the follow-up visit and constant communication with relevant personnel is important.”
When asked what the team would do differently next time, Ali stated, “Next time I would start the translation process much earlier since mis-translation or even out-of-context translation makes training extremely difficult.” To help with the program’s daily workflow, the IRD team is creating a detailed Russian user manual that is based on the OpenMRS User Guide and documentation for the MDR-TB OpenMRS module.