Expanding ABAY-CHR across Ethiopia
Dr Lemma, is CEO and Founder of Lalibela Global USA/ Lalibela Networks- Ethiopia. She is a Tropical Medicine expert working for the last 28 years in Africa, the US, the Caribbean and Europe mostly on M&E of Health programs, Health System Strengthening, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, MNCH, Communicable diseases. Her work focus: e and mHealth solutions adapted to Africa’s health challenge; Global Health Security and public health emergency management; and health system strengthening in Africa. Lemma has served as a technical expert in M&E, data quality and use, technology in health, HIV/AIDS at a number of International organizations such as WHO, GFATM, IGAD, The World Bank and the evaluation group (TERG) for GFATM. She has won a number of awards on her work on ehealth and HSS. She received her BSc from Spelman College, MPH from Emory University and MPHIL and PhD on Tropical Medicine from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK.
Our digital solution ABAY_CHR integrates Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Patient health Record (PHR). What is disruptive about our solution is we designed it to allow non-programmers (e.g. clinical providers, other workers in health institutions) easily to make modifications without programming knowledge. In most African health institutions, it is rare to find assign ICT professionals to expand/maintain any e-Health solutions. In order for providers and patients to benefit from e-health revolution that is evident in other continents, it is important the system is disruptive. Our solution integrates a low code solution where users can add new forms to the system without coding. We believe even rural patients, disproportionally women, and children who use underfunded clinics deserve to have their medical record secured and accessible when seeking care. We have built a web-based system that is flexible enough to scale easily to different facilities, situation (urban/rural hospitals/clinics) and countries.
Health care software in Africa needs to adapt to facility hierarchy (Hospital vs community clinics). We designed our web-based software (ABAY-CHR) to be flexible enough to adapt to these challenges. ABAY-CHR- a user-friendly solution promoting coordination across facilities, support systems that is continuous overtime, and between patient visits. There are many EMR’s in the world but our digital solution solves one crucial problem needed in Ethiopia/Africa that others have not done .i.e. Flexibility and simplicity, it can be used by a small rural clinic or tertiary hospitals in mega cities like Addis. It adapts to facility hierarchy, the frequent changing level of data collection forms seamlessly. Ethiopia has more than 400 hospitals, 5000 Health clinics, and 18,000 community Health posts serving over 100 million population. Our experience working in Ethiopia’s health care system shows patients forms, registers etc. change very frequently hence giving a “continuous patent care within health institutions, across clinics, districts, province etc.” challenging. This problem affects all people who seek health care. Studies have shown that at least 60% of population visits a health institution at least once in a year.
Health care software in Africa needs to adapt to facility hierarchy (Hospital vs community clinics). We designed our web-based software (ABAY-CHR) to be flexible enough to adapt to these challenges. ABAY-CHR- a user-friendly solution promoting coordination across facilities, support systems that is continuous overtime, and between patient visits. There are many EMR’s in the world but our digital solution solves one crucial problem needed in Ethiopia/Africa that others have not done .i.e. Flexibility and simplicity, it can be used by a small rural clinic or tertiary hospitals in mega cities like Addis. It adapts to facility hierarchy, the frequent changing level of data collection forms seamlessly. Ethiopia has more than 400 hospitals, 5000 Health clinics, and 18,000 community Health posts serving over 100 million population. Our experience working in Ethiopia’s health care system shows patients forms, registers etc. change very frequently hence giving a “continuous patent care within health institutions, across clinics, districts, province etc.” challenging. This problem affects all people who seek health care. Studies have shown that at least 60% of population visits a health institution at least once in a year.
Wollo in Amhara State is one of the poorest places in Ethiopia. It is the place where major Ethiopian draught of 1980 th, 90th happened affecting the health of many of its valuable population. Dessie City, in Wollo is one of the ancient commercial cities in Ethiopia and the home of Wollo University/ Kombolcha Institute of Technology (KOIT) and its teaching hospital Dessie Referral Hospital (DHR serves a catchment area of over 7 million population). Since we have an ongoing collaboration with Wollo University, we will like to expand the ABEY- CHR solution to 15 District Hospitals/clinics where Wollo University is expanding working on whitespace last mile solution in Dessie. Mobile coverage is increasing in Ethiopia. Due to COVD19 fear mothers aren't going to big city hospitals like DHR for fear of infection we will integrating telemedicine to our EMR solution in 15 Health institutions will expand the services. In collaboration with Wollo University and local Vocational schools we will train 30 unemployed youth to maintain the system in their localities and gradually start their “maintenance startup” to support ABAY-CHR expansion. We will document the lesson learned in expanding Digital solutions in continuum care environment to benefit patients.
- Elevating opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behind
The Elevate prize dimension I choose "Elevating opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behind" . My solution is trying to solve the frequent lost medical record problem in Ethiopia and wider Africa for the poor especially women and children who traditionally are vulnerable. Most patients who seek services in district and rural clinics in Ethiopia are disproportional uneducated mothers and children. We have made sure our solution addresses their health care needs and at a minimum secures their medical record so that they can be provided good health care services.
My inspiration was my late sister, who used to get sick and visit multiple hospitals/clinics in Addis. Many times, her paper medical record used to be misplaced or lost due to paper burden, misspelling names etc. For her, because she was an aspiring nursing student, she could articulate what was wrong with her to different providers, but there are millions of patients who could not articulate their conditions well and relay on the providers notes (medical records) in Ethiopia and wider Africa. When their medical record is lost it is as if a bit of them is cut and discarded. For me a secure medical record is simply a “human right”. Our health is intimate to all of us even the poor deserves a secure medical record that can be accessed over time or place. I have seen Nomads selling their precious camels to access good health care and at a minimum the health care Institutions need to secure their “Medical record” as it important for their care . That is why I started my business. I wanted to empower both patients and providers all over Africa. Hence the exciting Africa’s digital revolution happening now makes it timely.
I am an Ethiopia American teacher/Public Health expert who worked in field for more than 28 years. I left Ethiopia as a teenager and returned as an adult to contribute my skills. I have been excited by the digital advance in Africa especially the mobile revolution benefiting farmers, rural mothers and the poor. For the last 15 years, I worked in field and realize I need to help create “unique flexible e-health solution” that is not parachuted from outside but that fits Africa’s health care system, it unique challenges and widely benefit its patients and providers alike. For example, recently we added a queuing module to our solution in one referral hospital that sees 400/500 outpatients per day, before our system was implemented patients used to arrive at 4-5 am outside the hospital compound to register for morning service that starts at 9am. Our Module cut the waiting time from 5-6 hours to less than an hour, created separate tickets for new, returning patients, mothers etc. so that patients care could be improved. Simple helping patients like these is what excite me and push me to expand even further.
I donot give up. In the last decade I have lead multimillion dollar projects and have proven I can work in resource limited environment and make a difference. I am accomplished, innovative, and visionary professional, with extensive teaching experience for both undergraduate and graduate level students; combined with strong technical, research, and operations leadership expertise in developing global digital health and eGovernment solutions and strategizing infectious diseases program implementations to support health systems worldwide.
I have
- Broad understanding in HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB prevention and control, epidemiology, disease surveillance, tropical medicine, and public health management
- 28 years of international public health, and eHealth experience spanning Brazil, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Haiti, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Portugal, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo)
- Excellent communication and interpersonal abilities in establishing positive working relationships with multicultural teams of professionals to support key initiatives I am passionate about making sure one day no African woman, child and man will every loss their medical record irrespective of their social status i.e. poor or rich. I believe the digital revolution we see world-wide is narrowing the gaps between the haves and have-nots and Africa with expansion of mobile services, mobile money etc. will immensely benefit from digital health solutions customized for their needs.
I am a person who never gives up. I think in my genes the code for “give-up " is missing. I am passionate about the transformation Digital Health can bring to Health Care in Africa. I was instrumental in training more than 3000 young people in health and ICT in Ethiopia and has been honored for my contribution by the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia work in challenging environment
I have been working to solve the digital health problem in Africa for more than a decade. I believe we have found now a solution that meets Africa’s health care needs. Please look link below from Ministry of health giving me a leadership award link below
- For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
CEO and Founder