What is the name of your organization?
Impala Healthtech Research Ltd
What is the name of your solution?
DIGAMS: Digital AMS System
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Extending microbiological diagnostics, stewardship, treatment and antimicrobial procurement support to small health facilities in low-income settings
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Kampala, Uganda
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
UGA
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
We are solving the irrational use of antibiotics in under-resourced community settings, which is accelerating antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR is a top 10 global health threat, directly causing 1.3 million deaths annually: more than HIV or TB and contributing to 4.9 million more. The burden is greatest in low-resource settings like Sub-Saharan Africa, where weak diagnostic systems and poor antimicrobial stewardship drive widespread misuse.
In Uganda, AMR kills an estimated 30,000 people annually; more than any infectious disease except malaria and contributes to $108 million in healthcare costs and $500 million in lost productivity. Resistance rates exceed 50% for commonly used antibiotics like amoxicillin and ciprofloxacin in informal urban settlements such as Kawempe, Kampala. Yet fewer than 20 standard microbiology labs exist to serve Uganda’s 50 million people.
DIGAMS improves community-level diagnostics, treatment guidance, and stewardship. Our next step is developing an Antimicrobial Procurement Support AI trained on local morbidity, AMR trends, demographics, and antibiotic usage patterns. This tool will support pharmacies, drug shops, and lower-level health facilities to procure effective antibiotics based on actual disease burden and resistance trends, minimizing stockouts, curbing irrational purchases, and ensuring access to effective treatment in communities most at risk.
What is your solution?
Our solution is DIGAMS, a digital antimicrobial stewardship system designed to improve antibiotic use, access, and procurement in low-resource, community-level settings. DIGAMS integrates five key components:
Digital Diagnostics Marketplace: Connects community clinics to accredited microbiology labs for diagnostic services, extending AMR surveillance to underserved areas.
AMS Grading Tool: A digitized, automated antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) assessment tool adapted from WHO’s toolkit to evaluate and improve stewardship practices in health facilities and communities.
DIGAMS AI: A treatment decision support AI trained on global datasets like Pfizer’s ATLAS, local morbidity and AMR data, and usage patterns. It provides context-specific antimicrobial recommendations to frontline providers: clinicians, pharmacists, and nurses.
Community AMS Tracking: Enables community health workers to monitor home-based antibiotic access, usage, disposal, and infection prevention behaviors.
Treatment Outcomes Monitoring: Captures treatment results to refine AI recommendations and detect resistance or possible drug quality issues.
New Feature: Antimicrobial Procurement Support AI
We will leverage DIGAMS data to train an AI tool that predicts antibiotic demand based on disease patterns, resistance trends, and utilization. This will help drug shops, pharmacies, clinics and other community health centers procure effective antibiotics, reducing irrational purchasing and stockouts.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
DIGAMS serves under-equipped frontline health providers such as clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, laboratory personnel, and community health workers (CHWs)—who care for the urban poor and rural communities in Uganda. These providers, particularly those in Health Centre IIs, pharmacies, and drug shops, meet over 70% of Uganda’s healthcare and medicine needs. However, they lack access to microbiological diagnostics, data-driven guidance, and structured stewardship tools, leading to reliance on guesswork and irrational antimicrobial use.
DIGAMS equips these practitioners with access to off-site microbiology labs through a digital diagnostics marketplace, AI-driven antimicrobial treatment recommendations, stewardship assessment tools, and community-level monitoring instruments. Our upcoming Antimicrobial Procurement Support AI will further enable rational, needs-based procurement of antibiotics, minimizing stockouts and waste while improving availability of effective drugs.
Piloted in Kawempe Division, Kampala, a densely populated urban slum region of nearly 300,000 residents with AMR rates exceeding 50% for common antibiotics, DIGAMS has already shown potential to transform infectious disease care.
Ultimately, the most meaningful impact is on underserved patients: they receive timely, effective, and appropriate treatment for infections, leading to better health outcomes, reduced risk of resistance, and lower healthcare costs.
