Antek HealthWare has installed a laboratory information system (LIS) at the University of North Carolina Project lab in Malawi, Africa. The UNC Project is a collaboration between the University of North Carolina and the Kamuzu Central Hospital of the Malawi Ministry of Health in Lilongwe, Malawi, Africa.
The mission of this project is to (1) identify innovative, culturally acceptable, and relatively inexpensive methods for reducing the risk of HIV and STD transmission through research; (2) strengthen the local research capacity through training and technology transfers; and (3) improve patient care for people living with HIV and AIDS. Here is the link to the press release from Antek about their participation and here is a link to the University of North Carolina Project.
In the development phase of the LIS installation, the Antek engineers in the U.S. were able to help modify the LIS in Malawi to meet local needs through remote access. In December 2005, two of Antek’s application engineers performed the installation at the laboratory facility in Malawi. The Antek system was able to offer support features such as the ability to identify special patient populations, thus enabling the lab’s research goals in addition to its service mission.
Malawi is facing a severe food crisis -- it is estimated that 4.2 to 4.6 million of the population is now in dire straits. But what makes the food shortages stretching across Malawi even worse is the parallel HIV/AIDS pandemic. Estimates indicate that one in three severely malnourished children and two in five malnourished children in pediatric wards are HIV-positive (Link here).
This is a great story about collaboration in the LIS and clinical lab areas and I am happy to pass it on here. I am sure that it was not an easy task to configure the Antek system to accommodate to the service and research needs of a lab in an underdeveloped country. I can only speculate about the environmental difficulties that are encountered in keeping the system operational. All parties involved in the project are to be congratulated.
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