DOH’s CHD-MM and UPM-NThC set up CHITS in Pasay, Manila, and Muntinlupa

October 30th, 2010

Manila, Philippines — The Department of Health’s Center for Health Development – Metro Manila (DOH CHD-MM) and the University of the Philippines Manila – National Telehealth Center (UPM-NThC) forged its partnership with the setting-up of the Community Health Information Tracking System or CHITS to 6 selected health centers in the cities of Pasay, Manila, and Muntinlupa.

The automation of 6 selected health centers utilizing UP Manila’s very own electronic medical record system tailor-fitted for health centers will soon be up in highly-urbanized areas in Metro Manila. The health facilities include San Pablo and MIA in Pasay; Pedro Gil and Rosario Reyes in Manila; and Putatan and Alabang in Muntinlupa.

“We are glad that we will soon be automating our health centers,” elated City Health Officer Dr. Edilinda Patac of Muntinlupa. Putatan and Alabang Health Centers serve an average of 150-200 patients a day. “This will help a lot in our transactions and reports,” said Dr. Marivic Victorio of Putatan Health Center.

The CHITS project went into full swing with the preliminary visits and capability-building program of health workers by familiarizing with the ins and outs of using an electronic medical record system. The CHITS training program which was conducted in batches last August (Pasay), September (Manila), and October (Muntinlupa) was anchored towards harnessing health care delivery through building up the confidence of health workers in using computers and embedding it in their culture as they render quality health care service and report generation for data analysis and decision making.

Participants were asked to appraise their experience on the said activity. “Maganda itong CHITS sa paggawa namin ng reports na mano-mano (CHITS will be useful when we make our reports which is usually done by hand),” expressed nurse Josie Labrador of Pedro Gil Health Center.

“Mahirap sa una pero masasanay din kami kapag nasa health center na namin (Initially, it will be difficult but we will get used to it when it’s implemented in our health center),” said Joan Rivera of Alabang Health Center.

Currently, the CHD-MM and the respective City Health Offices are already procuring the hardware and network installation for the pilot sites. By early quarter of 2011, UPM-NThC will assist in the deployment and technical support when CHITS becomes fully-operational in the selected sites in Manila and Muntinlupa.

Pasay City, which is considered a “CHITS champion city” for having been a pioneer of the electronic medical record system, had two health centers added to their laurels. Now, Pasay has 10 automated health centers which is a step closer towards the first ever citywide automated health centers.

CHITS, an award-winning electronic medical record system committed to comply with present and future standards of the DOH and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), has been deployed in over 40 health facilities around the country.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Announcement, Training | No Comments »

FOSS for Health troops to House of Representatives

September 17th, 2010

Quezon City, Philippines — The University of the Philippines National Telehealth Center (UPM-NThC) forged its advocacy on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) during the 3rd House of Representatives FOSS week at the Batasan Pambansa from September 13 to 16, 2010.

The weeklong celebration dubbed as “FOSS on the GO!” coincided with the campaign of the congressional office of Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teddy A. Casiño on the use of FOSS in the country. “Since 2006, we have been pushing for FOSS,” expressed Rep. Casiño, who is the principal author of House Bill 1011 or the “Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) Act of 2010.” HB 1011 was filed anew by Rep. Casiño last July 7, 2010 after it initially surfaced in 2006.

“We hope to see and wish to find that we are not tied down to proprietary softwares,” reiterated Rep. Sigrfrido R. Tinga, Chairperson of the House Committee on Information and Communications Technology. “We should rally behind technology that will liberate us which will put that technology into the hands of the poorest of the Filipino.”

Sec. Ivan John E. Uy of the Commission on ICT (CICT) was the keynote speaker at the opening ceremonies of the year-long advocacy and information dissemination campaign of FOSS. “The CICT has made use of FOSS in our initiatives such as the eLGU project, promotion on the use of eSkwela, education opportunities, and computer literacy.” Sec. Uy mentioned.

UPM-NThC showcased its homegrown FOSS application for health such as the Community Health Information Tracking System (CHITS), an electronic medical record system for government health centers.

Prof. Ariel S. Betan of the UPM-NThC discussed during the September 15 round-table discussion on the question whether the Philippine government should go for FOSS: “Why not? We are actually far behind other countries and a lot of EU members are now migrating on the use of FOSS. Government should be proactive.”

The 3rd FOSS week celebration also introduced FOSS products and services by institutions and organizations such as Mozilla Foundation, Internation Open Source Network (IOSN), 98 Labs, Touch Solutions, Dsource, National Computer Center (NCC), and ePLDT.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Announcement, Congress | No Comments »

Pasay City adds two more health centers running on CHITS

September 16th, 2010

Pasay City, Philippines – Two health centers, San Pablo and MIA, has joined the list of CHITS-installed health centers in this city that is now running on an electronic health record system that is the Community Health Information Tracking System or CHITS.

The automation of the two health centers was a collaboration between the Center for Health Development-Metro Manila (CHD-MM) of the Department of Health (DOH), University of the Philippines Manila – National Telehealth Center (UPM-NThC), and the Pasay City Health Office. The 4 workstations for each health facility were provided by the City Health Office while the training and other expenses were shouldered by the CHD-MM in cooperation with the UPM-NThC.

With the installation of CHITS in San Pablo and MIA, this brings to 10 out of 14 health centers in Pasay City that are now enjoying the benefits of having an electronic health record system for their constituents.

“On our first test run last August 11, we were able to admit 42 patients and 22 of them were general consults,” said San Pablo physician-in-charge Dr. Carl Antonio. “Mas mabilis and okay ang CHITS (It was faster and okay using CHITS).”

Hardware and software installation; and CHITS training in San Pablo and MIA were simultaneously conducted last August 2010 with the help of the City Health Office led by Dr. Marie Irene R. Sy (Medical Officer V), Rosendo Pantino (PHN II), Josie Tresvalles (PHN I), Rosario Panesa (PHN I) and UPM-NThC’s CHITS Coordinator Noel Bañez.

“Sa umpisa, may resistance pero may willingness to follow (At first there was resistance in using CHITS but there was willingness to follow),” expressed MIA’s Public Health Nurse Rutchell Dimapilis. Nakita din namin ‘yung convenience of the system (We saw the convenience of the system),” added Dr. Leslie Joy Tolentino of MIA Health Center on the use of CHITS in their health facility.

In May 2010, Pasay City had M. Dela Cruz and Kalayaan Health Centers join the roster of CHITS-installed health facilities in their city.

Posted in Announcement | 1 Comment »

CHITS featured in Municipal Mayors Forum

September 8th, 2010

Mandaluyong City, Philippines – The Community Health Information Tracking System or CHITS, an e-Gov application for government health centers, was showcased in the 2nd Forum on E-Governance for Municipal Development (e-Gov4MD) at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Headquarters last September 6-7, 2010.

The two-day forum gathered more than 300 delegates of local government executives, planners, treasurers from 60 municipalities as well as CIOs, IT companies and professionals in the country. The theme echoed on “Achieving Good Governance through ICT-Enabled Public Administration.”

University of the Philippines Manila – National Telehealth Center’s Director Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo presented the electronic health record system for government health centers that is CHITS on the second day of the forum as part of the 3 e-Gov applications featured in the panel discussion. He discussed the benefits of CHITS to local government units and how it will also serve as a platform for telemedicine and e-Learning. The other two systems featured were the Local Governance Performance Management System by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) which aimed at local government service monitoring, and the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) which focused on poverty assessment.

At the end of the panel discussion, forum host Mayor Miguel C. Rivilla of Paniqui, Tarlac expressed, “My municipality of Paniqui, Tarlac will be forever grateful to Dr. Marcelo for having us chosen as one of the sites for CHITS.” He referred to a project launch of CHITS in the province of Tarlac last June 2010.

The e-Gov4MD Forum and General Assembly also witnessed the Aquino administration’s effort to invest in ICT as echoed by Vice-President Jejomar C. Binay who closed the forum: “We should make e-Governance as the cornerstone to empower our people.” He also expressed his hope that “civil societies to build bridges between public-private partnerships to be catalysts of change and the engine of national development and growth.”

E-Governance for Municipal Development (e-Gov4MD) was organized by the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP), Mayor’s Development Center (MDC), Chief Information Officers Forum (CIOF), and the Chief Information Officers Forum Foundation (CIOFF), and was supported by the Asian Development Bank.

Tags:
Posted in News | No Comments »

CHITS showcased in PhilHealth and East West Center’s Seminar on Population

June 25th, 2010

Pasig City, Philippines –- The Community Health Information Tracking System (CHITS) was showcased by the University of the Philippines Manila – National Telehealth Center (UPM-NThC) at the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and the Hawaii-based East West Center’s 41st Summer Seminar on Population Workshop conducted last June 24, 2010 at the PhilHealth Training Room at the CityState Center.

The UPM-NThC team led by Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo discussed NThC’s eHealth initiatives in the realm of eLearning for health, eMedicine (telemedicine), and eRecords. He also introduced Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) and the principles behind it to the participants from USA, China, Thailand, India, and the Philippines. With him was Mr. Noel Bañez, Coordinator for Primary Health Informatics and CHITS who helped facilitate the exercises on data quality. Dr. Marcelo gave an overview on the state of the national health information system as a prelude on his discussion of CHITS. Shortly after, a demonstration of CHITS was presented by Mr. Bañez which highlighted the 6 Basic Steps and the participants explored UPM-NThC’s homegrown electronic health record system.

Ms. Gilda Salvacion A. Diaz, senior manager of PhilHealth’s International and Local Cooperation Department, and Mr. Oscar Banias of the PhilHealth Training Institute were there to supervise the 5-day workshop on “Health Care Financing Analysis and Insurance Systems.”

The East West Center’s 41st Summer Seminar on Population, held annually since 1970, serves as a forum for individuals and institutions concerned with population- and health-related issues. The workshop aims to survey the basic issues surrounding health-care systems in the Asia-Pacific region and provide professional training in health economics, health-care financing and health policy.

Posted in News | No Comments »

More Pasay health centers join CHITS family

June 23rd, 2010

In May 10, 2004, the Community Health Information Tracking System or CHITS was pilot-tested in Pasay City. Six years after, health centers in M. Dela Cruz and Kalayaan join the roster of Lagrosa, Malibay, Doña Marta, Villamor, San Isidro, and Doña Nena as health centers in Pasay City which are now running on the electronic medical record system developed for government health centers.

Logistics and training was spearheaded by the Pasay City Health Office led by Dr. Peachy Sy with Public Health Nurses Rosendo Pantino (PHN II) of Lagrosa and Josefa Tresvalles (PHN I) of Malibay facilitated the orientation and workshop for the health care workers of M. Dela Cruz and Kalayaan.

The CHITS orientation gathered the health care workers from both health centers at the conference room of the Doña Marta Health facility last May 31, 2010. The orientation consisted of an overview on CHITS, attributes of good data quality interspersed with games which enable them to develop team work.

“Nangangapa pa kami ‘nung una (Initially, we were clueless),” admits Dr. Charito Julaila of Kalayaan Health Center on the first day of their five-half days of CHITS training. “Pagkatapos malaman namin ‘yung 6 basic steps, okay na kami (After we learned the 6 basic steps, we were fine.) The health care teams were taught the CHITS basic steps on patient registration, family folder assignment, household head designation, consultation, and PhilHealth number assignment.

After the health care workers learned the basic rudiments of CHITS, the succeeding days of their training were devoted on the use of the Maternal Care, Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), and the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP) modules. They utilized the workstations installed in their health centers as they encoded patients and practiced the modules with the assistance of the city’s public health nurses which include Rosendo Pantino,  Josefa Tresvalles, Rotchie Paneda; Noel Bañez of UP-NThC and software developer Earl Justin Garcia.

Implementation of CHITS in the health care centers were initiated as soon as the training was done. “Nalilito kami ng konti pero mabilis ‘yung system. Exciting siya kasi napapabilis lahat (We were a little bit confused but the system is fast. It is exciting because it speeds up everything),” enthuses Charito Lechico (PHN I) of M. Dela Cruz Health Center. “Magaling nag-train din sa amin kaya nakaya namin (Our trainers were good. That is why we were able to cope with it.)”

With 8 out of 14 health centers in Pasay City that are currently running on CHITS, Dr. Sy is optimistic that they will be able to install the system in all of their health centers to render quality, effective patient record system and delivery of health care to their residents.

Posted in News | No Comments »

CHITS makes public-private partnerships possible

June 23rd, 2010

Moncada, Tarlac, Philippines –- The University of the Philippines Manila – National Telehealth Center’s Community Health Information Tracking System (CHITS) made history as it forged partnerships between the public and private sectors through the Wireless Access for Health (WAH) project initiative launched last June 22, 2010.

“It has been a long time but definitely worth the wait,” said Dr. Alvin Marcelo, director of the UPM-NThC and national program coordinator for CHITS. “This is just the beginning. The transformation process for the national health information system will begin at the grassroots and CHITS is helping LGUs achieve that.”

CHITS was a key component that brought the stakeholders together and WAH “leveraged their expertise and resources in public health, medical care, technology, and training in creating an electronic health record system that meets the needs of health care decision makers on varying levels, ranging from midwives to doctors to policy makers,” said the province’s health office and Qualcomm Inc.

As an open-source, web-based Electronic Health Record system specifically designed for government health centers, CHITS has been expanded to support data collection and reporting for all 23 of the regularly used indicators in the Department of Health’s Field Health Service Information System (FHSIS). Data submitted to the FHSIS through CHITS is used for policy analysis and planning at all levels of the public health system as it improves access to quality patient records for clinicians and quality data.

“CHITS improves patient care and access to public health information by consolidating data captured during patient visits into reports for health care workers in four health units in the Tarlac region of the Philippines,” stated Dr. Ricardo P. Ramos, chief of the Tarlac Provincial health unit.

The project has trained 40 midwives and nurses at the rural health units in Gerona, Moncada, Paniqui, and Victoria to use computers for the first time. Utilizing CHITS has “improved patient care and more efficient patient visits” as the time needed to search for records is reduced to just seconds. The ability to easily view, record and share patient information simultaneously across multiple computers within a health clinic allows clinicians to complete patient consultations earlier, resulting in increased capacity to provide further support to community health workers.

Dr. Ramos continued, “The system’s accurate and timely submission of health data is important in helping the government to identify and prevent disease outbreaks across the Philippines.”

“Good health is fundamental to our lives. The use of electronic health record systems improves patient care and public health by making it easier for health care workers to both record and report patient information,” said John Stefanac, vice president of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm Southeast Asia and Pacific.

“We congratulate the University of the Philippines Manila – National Telehealth Center for being the pioneering force behind a homegrown systematic health information recording system that is CHITS,” said Myra Emata-Stokes, chief of The U.S. Agency for International Development’s Program Resources Management during the launch.

The project initiative event highlighted the ceremonial turnover of the transmission of the FHSIS report to the Department of Health by the project partners including Tarlac Governor Victor Yap, Dr. Nemesio T. Gako of the Department of Health, Dr. Ricardo P. Ramos of Tarlac Provincial Health Office, Dr. Isidro C. Sia of the University of the Philippines Manila, Dr. Glenard T. Madriaga of the Tarlac State University, John Stefanac of Qualcomm Inc., Myra Emata-Stokes of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Orlando B. Vea of Smart Communications, Inc. (SMART) and Moncada town Mayor Benny Aquino.

The project initiative was made possible through the collaboration of public-private partners: agencies of the Philippines Department of Health, including the National Epidemiology Center, the Information Management Service and the Center for Health Development for Region 3, local government units in Tarlac, the University of the Philippines Manila-National Telehealth Center (UPM-NThC), Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach initiative, RTI International, Smart Communications, Inc. (SMART), Tarlac State University,  and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

CHITS was first used in May 2004 in Lagrosa Health Center in Pasay City. It is now in 36 health centers around the country.

Tags: , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

Stakeholders gear up for announcement launch

June 7th, 2010

The Wireless Access for Health (WAH) stakeholders convened last June 1, 2010 at the La Maja Rica Hotel in Tarlac City to review the important details capping the June launch of the Tarlac project.

The “merger of resources” was to finalize plans for the announcement events and solicit feedback regarding the announcement program, event schedule, logo, tagline, and media materials.

Posted in Stakeholders meeting | No Comments »

CHITS from a developer’s perspective

May 28th, 2010

The nice thing about free and open source software is its inclusiveness. We received an email from one of our OJTs who was assigned to understand how CHITS works in Pasay City. There are several interesting things in his report. First, the healthcare domain is a specialist one. Even after being deployed to the CHITS sites for two weeks, it is difficult for non-health personnel (eg, developers) to grasp the whole health careflow. Second, using frameworks (CHITS uses GAME) makes it easy for developers to join the careflow using something that they can comprehend — source code. This is only possible because CHITS is open source. Third, collaboration between health and IT is crucial to the success of any eHealth application. There should be enough attention placed on teamwork and communications to increase chances of success.

<START>

Sir Noel and I attended the CHITS training sessions being conducted by the instructors, Sir Rosendo Pantino and Ma’am Josie Tresvalles. On the fhe first day, upon arrival, we observed the terminals where the software was installed and found out that only 1 terminal, the server, was being used due to a network problem. This allowed me to do some network troubleshooting which was finally identified as a faulty wifi-adapter.

The demo-training topic for that day were: the basic steps of patient registration, family folders, Philhealth modules. Most of these were already familiar since I read the CUTE Manual already (CHITS User Training Experience). This is my 2nd time to see CHITS in action, this time with detailed explanation per modules. I am finally being able to grasp the importance of having a need for computerized systems in health centers, and the convenience that CHITS can provide the health sector. As we went through step by step with the modules, I’ve noticed both major and minor design and logical issues which I took note of, including some of the wish-lists of the participants/end users. Some of them were asking me to debug on the spot which I tried to do so, even if it was my first time to touch the code. In the end,  I decided to ask for Sir Randy’s help. The CHITS/GAME framework was well written and very easy to understand, but I will need some time before I can finally get around the code. After the discussions, the instructors asked the participants to input data based on the process/steps that have been discussed. This allowed them to put to practice what they have learned immediately.

The next day all the terminals were already repaired by their tech nurse and was now fully functional. The day’s topic was all about the maternal care modules. Again for this day I took notes of the problems we encountered in the system. Sir Randy taught me how to connect to a remote computer through SSH so I can edit files through my terminal. He(Randy) mentioned to me about some ethical issues in which I have little idea about and I might need to ask you doc sometime.

The third day, we again went on with the discussion, this time the Family Planning, Hypertensive and TB Therapy Modules. For the day, I learned different ways of how to install CHITS through Sir Rotchie Paneda(Pasay Nurse) and Sir Randy. I have also succesfully installed it on my laptop.

To sum up my report, I would say everyone was doing their jobs well, the instructors and the healthcare workers. I enjoyed the three days of training. Aside from the good food(pasay nurses cook very well :D ) , seeing the enthusiasm of the health workers to learn something new is priceless. I am also learning a lot of new things, and the joy of meeting new people feels good. I’ve had a desire to contribute in the development of CHITS, specifically in the remodeling of the systems overall look base on the different feedbacks I have gathered.

Earl Justin Garcia

(posted with permission)

Posted in Opinion | 2 Comments »

Information for Decision Making

May 14th, 2010

What is the use of collecting data with computers if these will not have an impact on individual, community or population health? Thankfully, information from CHITS can be used for decision making. Before CHITS, we could only say motherhood statements about information for decision making. Now we can actually demonstrate it. Here are examples of how data can be used to improve health.

1) Tracking individual data over time. This is an important feature at the RHU level because it provides them with a longitudinal perspective of the care received by a patient in their facility. It also helps them relate this with the other members of the family, and to the barangay. This is most helpful especially in cases of outbreaks.

2) Impact to community health is best manifested if there are outbreaks. If a patient comes in with suspected cholera, a quick scan of CHITS will show if there have been previous consultations or which barangay health workers (BHWs) to warn.

3) For population health, CHITS can aggregate data to any format that will be required by DOH and PhilHealth and send it off securely for epidemiology analysis. This is important for national level decision making.

Posted in Opinion | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »