Frontlines of Health

Selected

E-Heza

A low-cost, quality-driven electronic health record that improves maternal and child health outcomes

Team Lead

Wendy Leonard

Hear the Pitch

The Problem

Throughout Africa, existing eHealth solutions are inadequate, and are typically designed without incorporating critical input from their end users—nurses in rural health centers, where most antenatal and childhood care is provided. Too many applications do not enable healthcare providers to deliver more effective and affordable care.

The Solution

E-Heza’s user-centered design approach avoids these traditional barriers to product adoption. Building upon nurses’ existing workflows, E-Heza’s platform makes it easy for nurses to log health data while examining patients. The solution provides real-time individualized data to help guide patient education. It also supports the data requirements of national governments—giving nurses the tools they need to adopt evidence-based clinical care protocols.

E-Heza functions offline, and once connected to the internet, it syncs all data directly with the Rwanda Ministry of Health’s District Health Information System 2 (DHIS2) reporting platform. The system minimizes delays, removes redundancy, and improves quality and efficiency of reporting.

Market Opportunity

  • Few electronic health record systems are built for users in rural health facilities in lower-income countries. M-Health tools created for Community Health Workers are not sufficient and mature Electronic Medical Records created for district hospitals are too complex for use in rural health centers.
  • E-Heza goes beyond competing products, such as openMRS, with an added focus on malnutrition diagnosis and HIV transmission reduction by using the data to inform health education and prevention among mothers with HIV.
  • E-Heza currently partners with Rwandan Ministry of Health on a nationwide roll out of their electronic health record by 2020, potentially reaching 12.21 million Rwandans covered by the public health system.

Organization Highlights

  • Featured speaker: Aspen Ideas Festival
  • Awards: GenH Challenge Finalist, Save the Children Prize for Breakthrough Innovations for Children  

Existing Partnerships

E-Heza partners with various organizations to help scale its electronic health record, such as:

  • Johnson & Johnson’s Health & Wellness IT division for pro-bono support
  • Rwanda Ministry of Health for technical support and funding opportunities
  • East African Health Research Commission to expand in additional East African countries
  • Gizra Internet Solutions to lead the software development process
  • Greater Good Studio for design expertise

Organization Goals

To ensure affordability to national governments and facilitate more rapid expansion of its functionality, E-Heza will:

  • Make its software open source
  • Build a business model with multiple revenue streams
  • Offer consultation services to support client implementation strategies, software modifications, and integration with other software systems

Partnership Goals

To reach the goals mentioned above, E-Heza seeks partnerships to:

  • Advise on business strategy, especially on deciding whether to integrate with existing electronic health record (EHR) systems or create their own
  • Develop a strategy for attracting major gifts to support expansion efforts through strategic fundraising
  • Consult on making open source software available while maximizing financial return
  • Initiate speaking engagements to share stories of community-driven model with other global health leaders

Stats

By the end of 2019, E-Heza will have directly affected 250,000 lives in sub-Saharan Africa.

With E-Heza, nurses in Rwanda successfully fulfilled 91 percent of patient screening requirements, a 50 percent improvement from before using E-Heza.

Solver Team

Organization Type:
Nonprofit

Headquarters:
Ruli, Rwanda

Stage:
Pilot

Working in:
Rushashi, Rwanda

Website:
https://www.tipglobalhealth.org/e-heza/

Solution Team:

Health

Electronic Records for Family Health

Solver E-Heza received the $25,000 Save the Children Prize for Breakthrough Innovations for Children from Member Save the Children in 2018 to further develop a low-cost electronic health record that improves maternal and child health outcomes.

Health

Electronic Records for Family Health

Solver E-Heza, a low-cost electronic health record that improves maternal and child health outcomes, received a $10,000 grant from Solve in 2018 for being selected as a Frontlines of Health Solver.

 
 
    Back
to Top