Ends of the earth...

It seems that more and more countries are hearing about Kisiizi!  We have just had our first application for an elective attachment from a medical student in Iceland!

Kiwi Invasion:

We have enjoyed a good New Zealand contingent with two trainee midwives, Natasha and Katy, joining us for five weeks and then Nadia, an experienced neonatal nurse, coming up from Kisoro to help us for a month or so.  Then Charlie, a psychiatrist from New Zealand with his wife Cecelia, originally from Chile, have joined us for a couple of months - she is a photo-journalist and psychologist.  We also welcomed Lesley, a manager with CMS New Zealand, for a brief visit.

Beth, a trainee phyiotherapy student, joined us from USA and we had medical students from Germany as well as UK so a really nice international mix.  Add to this Ugandans coming from different parts of the country, some unable to speak the local Rukiga dialect, and you will appreciate the richness of the mix of people working together.

Visitors:

We also enjoyed a visit by our World Health Organization country director and his team plus the District Health Officer from Kabale.  They were impressed by what Kisiizi is  doing and we hope the visit will lead to more interaction in future and the spread of our patient safety programmes.

Importantly we also welcomed members of our Board of Governors and were happy to have the externally audited accounts available up to the 30th June 2014 that were duly approved.  There will be some follow-up meetings to look at our 5-year Strategic Plan and the Terms & Conditions of Service and  Constitution so these are important bits of work to finalise.

One way Kisiizi has received publicity is to be included in a Cultural Museum near to Mbarara

Stre@mline

Ian is working with Rimpscom, an IT company in Mbarara, on the Stre@mline computer software programme that he had developed in Macclesfield.  This is because the existing IT package in Kisiizi has proved frustrating as it does not have the functionality we need and has proved impossible to upgrade or edit.  Stre@mline is an integrated programme that follows the patient journey and incorporates important patient safety principles.  Management have now given approval for Stre@mline to be piloted in out-patients and if this goes well we will extend it systematically to the wards.  If we achieve good functionality we will install it in a sister hospital in Kabale and if both units have a successful outcome then we will aim to write it up and make it more widely available at a low price appropriate for places like Kisiizi.  If it works out well, it could be used "to the ends of the earth"....
The programme will provide much more accurate data as all the information is stored in an underlying SQL database.  The programme uses a browser front-end interface so its easy to learn how to use the system.