To begin this discussion, please follow this discussion:
From today’s conversation, our initial responsibilities are
• The creation of this community
• The creation of this email and formally the talk page
• Preparation for a Ugandan implementer’s meeting
Finally, some initial topics that we might benefit from as a local community include
• Sharing how we are addressing reporting for PEPFAR requirements
• How we encourage adoption by clinicians
• How to share issues with network connectivity
Also note, Rwanda is also in the process of creating its own community
Todd
Todd Anderson
Business Analyst and Software Development Manager
Partners in Health—Inshuti Mu Buzima
TAnderson@pih.org
+250 782 832 624
And I’m Todd Anderson, Inshuti Mu Buzima–Partners in Health, Rwanda, Business Analyst and Developemnt Manager. I’ll be looking to connect on development improvements and facilitating connections among IT staff involved and Coordinators.
Please introduce yourself, give your country, organization, role, and anything you might be looking for in the short term from this community.
If you begin another talk line on East Africa, use the #EastAfrica tag for now.
Thanks for starting this discussion @toddandersonpih. Could you encourage the relevant people you know to introduce themselves here? @wanyee how about you? @k_joseph?
@michael We’re starting with small steps, but it’s definitely something that came up in the discussion today.
Hi everyone! I am happy to be part of this initiative. My name is Steven Wanyee from Kenya. I am currently the OpenMRS Kenya Community Manager and I am happy to play whatever role to make this happen.
I would encourage us to ensure our country communities are well represented in the activities of this initiative, and I am happy to represent Kenya in that regard, but of course by no means is that representation exclusive.
I have pasted a list of tasks we agreed to do at the inaugural meeting we had today over lunch at SMU;
Tasks:
Draft a concept note for implementers meeting tentatively scheduled for Oct 2016 in Kampala - Steven, Uganda by Sat12th Dec 2015 AM
Contribute ideas, refine and finalise concept note for this meeting to ensure it represents collective interests - EVERYONE by when?
Put together a lean planning committee for implementers meeting in Kampala, Oct 2016 - Steven, Kenya by COB Sat 12th Dec 2015.
Lead planning of an implementers meeting in Oct 2016, Kampala - Jonathan, Uganda
Set up virtual interaction/collaboration forum - Rwanda by when?
Thanks all for that fruitfull talk that we had today during the lunch break. My name is Jonathan Mpango, am member of the Uganda eHealth TWG and Uganda OpenMRS community back in my country. I work with Makerere University School of Public Health - METS programme and one of our primary task as programme is to support Ministry of Health to implement, customize and rollout OpenMRS in all high volume site across the entire country.
Creation of the OpenMRS EAC is a timely innovation for Uganda as a country. As a country we have just embarked on rolling out OpenMRS on a large scale. I believe this platform will help me to learn from others and to share our OpenMRS implementing experiences.
It will be a great honour and a stepping stone for Uganda to host next year’s EAC openMRS implementer meeting. This will be the first time for us to host as a meeting. I want to seek for guidance/recommendations from members from Kenya, Rwanda, OpenMRS community who have hosted such a meeting before.
What does it take for a country to host such a meeting
What should be the target audience, meeting key achievement etc…
Can I get a letter from OpenMRS.inc that I can use to engange MoH and health stakeholders??. How can I get one?
Next year’s EAC OpenMRS Implements meeting is one of the key actions points am taking back home at the end of the summit .
Any guidance / recommendations to the Ugandan team is highly welcome.
Other Ugandan Team Members Present in Today’s Meeting:
Jonathan:
It is great that Uganda have stepped up and volunteered to host this important meeting. We’ll do it and do it very well, and all the lessons we’ve all learned so far planning and hosting similar meetings in the past will certainly come into great use.
As we discussed yesterday, it is important to have a lean collaborative planning team led by you and the your colleagues in Uganda.
What does it take for a country to host such a meeting - very good planning, and the final list of this planning committee will have that on their TOR.
What should be the target audience, meeting key achievement etc…everyone who has an interest, and most importantly all those people in Uganda as the host country. For purposes of efficient audience targeting, this will include; MOH and its development partners (USG e.g CDC, USAID, etc, European e.g. GIZ, JICA, EU, etc), implementing/service delivery partners e.g. PIH, EGPAF, etc, academia e.g. Makerere U, etc, tech hubs, private health sector, professional associations/societies, etc
Can I get a letter from OpenMRS.inc that I can use to engange MoH and health stakeholders??. How can I get one? I’m sure you can and Michael can help with that.
I suggest we ensure to address the following tasks as discussed yesterday;
Draft a concept note for implementers meeting tentatively scheduled for Oct 2016 in Kampala - Steven, Uganda by Sat12th Dec 2015 AM
Contribute ideas, refine and finalise concept note for this meeting to ensure it represents collective interests - EVERYONE by when?
Put together a lean planning committee for implementers meeting in Kampala, Oct 2016 - Steven, Kenya by COB Sat 12th Dec 2015.
Lead planning of an implementers meeting in Oct 2016, Kampala - Jonathan, Uganda
Set up virtual interaction/collaboration forum - Rwanda by when?
Hello, I am very excited to be part of this community! My name is Nadine Karema. I am the Health Information System Director at Partners In Health (PIH)/Inshuti Mu Buzima (IMB) in Rwanda. I am interested in a community representing not only developers but also implementers and end-users. This will put facilitate the implementation of new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) functionalities adapted to Rwanda as well as improvements towards use of the system and use of data by all stakeholders.We are working towards such a local community in Rwanda, in collaboration with the University of Rwanda (School of Public Health).
I look forward to how we can all contribute to the East Africa Community and “songa mbele pamoja”
Nadine Karema
Health Information System Director
Partners in Health/Inshuti Mu Buzima | Rwanda
P: +250 782766753
Hello, I am Stephen Senkomago Musoke (SSM), a software engineer with UCSF working with the Makerere School of Public Health on the METS program with @jmpango, to support the customization, rollout and maintenance of OpenMRS as an EMR in Uganda, plus adding features for HIV case based surveillance.
The most exciting thing, is that all of us are solving similar problems in different ways, but there are lots of synergies we can leverage to grow our countries eHealth solutions, and communities to support the maintenance and usage of these tools.
Back home we say “Agalya awamu galuma enyama” meaning only the teeth that work together can bite off and chew a big juicy chunk of meat
Hi Nadine! Yes, we will certainly “songa mbele” as we “galuma enyama”.
On a more serious and happier note, I’m personally excited at the potential that this expanded interaction and communion holds for this region especially in terms of sharing and learning from our collective experiences. I look forward to sharing about all the relevant activities we are planning to carry out in Kenya and hope those will interest some of you on this forum, and hopefully everyone else from other countries will share relevant activities that will interest others to even come to your countries and participate. A quick one is of course is Uganda inviting all of us to participate in an implementers meeting in Uganda next year. This opportunity will (and should) present another forum for us to interact and share a lot more in addition and complimentary to these virtual interactions.
@toddandersonpih I think using this talk page as the virtual interaction and collaboration forum would be excellent as it would provide a learning place for other local communities as we undertake this journey with a big plus of being able to get mentored by the overall OpenMRS community.
Lets “opensource” the process of building the East African community
Hi @toddandersonpih, yes, I consider this talk page as the virtual interaction amongst email, etc as necessary.
@ssmusoke, I fully support that. Just a reminder about the following tasks we agreed to follow up on;
Draft a concept note for implementers meeting tentatively scheduled for Oct 2016 in Kampala - Steven, Uganda by Sat12th Dec 2015 AM - I suggest Jonathan and Steven start a draft on this being the hosts and the rest of us will add on it.
Contribute ideas, refine and finalise concept note for this meeting to ensure it represents collective interests - Could we do this by end of Jan 2016?
Put together a lean planning committee for implementers meeting in Kampala, Oct 2016 - Steven, Kenya by COB Sat 12th Dec 2015. As we agreed, this committee will be led by @jmpango assisted by @ssmusoke.
Lead planning of an implementers meeting in Oct 2016, Kampala - @jmpango will continue to lead this process.
I’d also like to request input from @michael especially about best practice in planning for this meeting including a road map.
Hope you reached safely back home. I have also just settled in. A quick update though is that tomorrow (17 Dec 2015) Uganda has set up a meeting with all the local Implementing partners for the local Openmrs TWG meeting. One of the items on the agenda is the EA OpeMRS implementing meeting that is to be hosted in Uganda. Could you be having any thing that you could like me to mention during the meeting?? (Any other EAC member can give an opinion).
Hi Jonathan! I got back home safe and back to the swing of things. I’m
happy to hear you too got back okay.
Beyond providing updates to the rest of the stakeholders in Uganda about
our discussions and generally about OpenMRS implementers meetings, it will
be useful to;
Start to understand from them their expectations of that meeting so that
the planning committee ensures the meeting meets the expectations of Uganda
(and by extension, EA and the global community).
Invite each IP to nominate a rep to be part of the planning process.
The first thing we need is a collation of our thoughts, ideas, suggestions,
wishes, etc in form of a simple concept note. Since you have the
stakeholders meeting tomorrow, why don’t you and SSM use that meeting to
draft a concept note? Share with the SMU team and we aim to finalize that
in Jan 2016? The final concept note will guide a lot of why follows. I will
continue to play the coordinator role.
What do you think?
