Information and Communication Technology Projects: Zambia
Zambia Electronic Perinatal Record System (ZEPRS) (2002-2009)
Client/Agency
University of Alabama- Birmingham (UAB)
Background
The Zambian Electronic Perinatal Record System (ZEPRS), a Web-based electronic medical records and referral system, is one of the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. It is designed to help improve perinatal care in Lusaka, and contains features designed to help in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS. ZEPRS is providing online management of records for perinatal patients in 24 networked clinics, UTH, the Lusaka District Health Management Team, and the Ministry of Health over the ZEPRS high-speed wireless network. The University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) Center for Research in Women's Health (CRWH), RTI, and the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) developed ZEPRS with funding support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. ZEPRS has been developed using open source software and can operate in networked or stand-alone applications. ZEPRS core architecture permits the software to be adapted to other environments and applications.
Purpose
The major objective of this project was to improve the quality of patient care in 24 participating clinics of the Lusaka Urban District and the University Teaching Hospital (UTH). ZEPRS is helping to improve health of patients through
- Improved access to patient records over time
- Improved patient record quality
- Improved information for research and analyzing interventions
- Provision of useful information for Zambian health administrators to better manage health facilities and allocate scarce resources.
More Information
- ICT Improves Patient Care in Africa
- Tour of ZEPRS features
- The ZEPRS Project (Web site)
- ZEPRS demo (enter the following credentials: username=demo, password=demo11). Please use Mozilla Firefox to view the ZEPRS demo.