Posts Tagged ‘chits’

FOSS for Health troops to House of Representatives

Friday, 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.

CHITS featured in Municipal Mayors Forum

Wednesday, 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.

CHITS makes public-private partnerships possible

Wednesday, 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.