Design and development of trachoma patients’ monitoring and tracking system for Kajiado County, Kenya

Abstract

Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping software provide powerful tools for management and analysis of infectious diseases control programs. The use of this technology can be tailored to suit a wide range of applications. These include: practical operational maps to assist with location, and analytical tools to facilitate program monitoring and evaluation. The study aimed at designing and developing a monitoring and tracking system for Trachoma patients within Kajiado County. The specific objectives of the study were: to undertake a feasibility study on the need for the GIS system in Kajiado County; to undertake a system analysis for the development of a GIS application system to monitor Trachoma patients; to design and develop a GIS system to monitor and manage Trachoma patients in Kajiado County; to test the GIS system for efficiency and reliability. The requirements specifications for the system included: to improve the collection and reporting of aggregated health data of Trachoma patients through mobile technologies; to identify specific locations vulnerable to Trachoma within Kajiado County; to identify congregate groups targeted for preventive measures of Trachoma disease; to create maps to help stakeholders to establish the location of the patients within Kajiado County. This study was based on the Susceptible Infected Recovered (SIR) model.The research design used was Experimental and the system methodology used was Evolutionary prototyping. Data was collected using face to face interviews and document analysis from Bissil, Mile 46, Kitengela and Isinya which were used to test the system. The following ethical issues were considered: respect for the dignity of (research participants) which included medical practitioners, CHW and patients was prioritised; Full consent was obtained from the Doctor in charge of Kajiado prior to the study; adequate level of confidentiality of the patient data was ensured. Cross case analysis was used to analyze the data within the areas. The Android operating system and Java programming were used to develop the user interface for capturing the data by the CHW through the use of a GIS enabled phone (Samsung). Google map application was used to identify the locations of the patient on a map. Visual Basic.net programming language was used to generate the reports to be used by AMREF Coordinators for decision making.The findings of the study were as follows; Reporting of Trachoma Patients using the GIS enabled mobile phones led to reduction of the spread of Trachoma by improving the data collection, the use of maps enabled the medical practitioners and the AMREF coordinators to quickly identify the location/household of Trachoma Prevalence areas. Developing of the Trachoma monitoring and tracking system provided accurate information concerning Trachoma patients leading to fast policy and decision making by the concerned personnel. It is concluded that developing of Trachoma Monitoring system was a quick and effective solution for reporting patients infected with Trachoma. The system should be adapted to replace the current manual paper based way of reporting patients infected with Trachoma by CHW. The study further recommends developing of a GIS Cloud Mobile Data Collection system for web and mobile devices which would allow collection of Trachoma patient data in real time mode.