Health Telematics Infrastructure
Health Telematics for improving TB- and HIV-care in rural Tanzania
The project „Health Telematics for improving TB- and HIV-care in rural Tanzania“ was carried out in the year 2020 to 2022 in Kilombero region of Tanzania.
The aim of the project was to develop, implement and test the proof-of-concept for a novel IT system „Health Telematics Infrastructure – HTI“ to connect rural and remotely living populations to centralized diagnostic and therapeutic services for TB and HIV.
A low-cost open-source software solution was designed connecting existing software packages together to build a data capture, sample tracking and SMS healthcare worker and patient feedback system, enabling e.g. molecular testing of TB samples from people living hundreds of kilometers away from the central lab. HTI works under low-bandwidth and unstable internet conditions anywhere with at least 2G coverage. HTI was technically developed and maintained by our partner eHealth Africa.
The project was successfully completed on April 30, 2022, and the project evaluation including medical and public health effects, technical aspects, but also social and socio-economic and data protection aspects will continue until early 2023, and results will be published in 2023.
Project team
Dr. Jerry Hella (IHI)
Dr. Michael Kasmiri (IHI & SFRH)
Mwanhamisi Mfaume (IHI & SFRH)
PD Dr. Thomas Zoller (CHARITE)
Helene Kriedemann (CHARITE)
Johanna Roegele and Aboubacar Douno (eHealthAfrica)
For any enquiries, feel free to contact the project team at tbtelematic@gmail.com
Funding
The project was funded by:
GIZ – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (Germany)
BMBF – Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany)