(Warning: This one is for the techies) So I mentioned before that I purchased a bunch of eeePCs to test out in the health clinics and to use in the management agencies as asyncronous web servers and health information management devices. I suppose to some extent that in retrospect these clinics will have wanted Windows [...]
Posts under ‘Uganda’
Netbook Mania
So one of the outcomes of my study last August is that admittedly.. people don’t want mobile phones for their health records, they want laptops. And these new netbooks – well they cost the same as these smartphones. But last August, the eeepcs had a battery life of 1.5 hours and only about 4MB of [...]
Preparing for Power Cuts
I’m pretty gadget heavy on this trip. In terms of power stuff I have: 1 solar flexible-panel charger (retail $99-ish) for 4 AA batteries2 solio solar chargers, for mobile phones and usb devices (can be charged via solar or grid power. I only have one adapterfor grid power) (retail about $80 each)1 inverter (retail about [...]
Back in the Field
I’m on my way back out to Uganda, this time to run a pilot study of the software, working out some of the details of the design (co-design?) with the people in the management agency and the clinics, and doing a comparative study between a bunch of possible device platforms: Palm 680, Palm Centro, Blackberry [...]
Epocrates for developing countries?
So I’m talking to my doctor about possible drug interactions between various prescriptions and he pulls out a… (drum roll) palm treo. Oh okay so that’s probably not a major revelation.. doctors love Palm devices and have loved them pretty much since 3COM started making them back in the 90s. (Can I say that yet? [...]
Event: Blum Student Symposium – Smartphones and Healthcare Information Management in Uganda
Hi all, I gave a presentation at the Blum Student Symposium last Thursday. For anyone that’s interested, the slides (65MB) are downloadable here: http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/~melissa/blum-symposium-oct-04-07.ppt The talk was about current health information practices in rural health clinics in Uganda, how PDAs have been integrated into a particular district, and our projections for what we’re working on [...]
Uganda pastor denies miracle scam (BBC News)
One of the things that stands out in my travels in Africa (more so in Ghana than Uganda) is the prevalence of the charismatic pentacostal megachurches. They have their pluses and minuses (Phillipians 1:17-18 comes to mind), and I have some hesitations about the “prosperity gospel” as well as how much they seem to revere [...]
Solar Power and Mbarara Update
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with not nearly enough access to internet cafes! This week I am back in Mbarara, currently using the computer science lab (which is empty because the students are all doing exams now), but also meeting with various professors here (again!) and working with Ben and Richard on the [...]
Of Government Meetings and Snazzy Powerpoint Animations
The culmination of our many many meetings was our presentations to the Ministry of Health and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nakaseke district. (Although admittedly the MP meeting was a bit of a surprise, so a bit extemporaneous.) We had been spending our evenings in Luwero (the town near Nakaseke where we were staying) [...]
Smart Delivery with SmartVouchers
I’ve been in Uganda for almost a week now, doing a needs assessment with the East Africa Blum Fellows smartphone team – on whether and how smartphones can be used in the context of healthcare in Uganda. We’ve had meetings all over Kampala, with Satellife/Healthnet Uganda, the Ministry of Health, and various people at Makarere [...]
