As I have promised, we are releasing versions 3.0 of iHRIS Manage and iHRIS Qualify this month. We will start by posting new live demos on the HRIS Strengthening website and stable release versions of the code on our Launchpad hosting site. We’ll follow that up with complete packages that you can download from the HRIS Strengthening website, which will make it easier to install and try out the software.
Writing information systems is hard and sometimes frustrating work. As soon as a new version comes out, our users are clamoring for new features. We feel like we’ll never catch up with the demand. This can be discouraging, until we realize that the systems must be serving a purpose if the users keep wanting more. One thing we have to balance is the need to create software that is general and useful enough for any potential user but can be readily customized for specific settings.
As all software users know, software rarely fits your specific needs out of the box. We knew that there would be different requirements particularly for HR information systems from country to country and even among different facilities. We have striven to make our software easily customizable by the end users, and Version 3.0 builds on this by introducing configurable modules. System administrators can turn off modules they don’t need or set custom settings for modules without requiring programming experience. Programmers can write their own modules and easily integrate them into the system. We plan to follow up these improvements with a customized report-building tool and customizable roles; both should be available by summer.
Another big improvement in Version 3.0 is the ability to export data from reports in a variety of formats, including an attractive printable PDF. This will make data much more useful as it can easily be brought into Excel for more intensive analysis or imported into other systems.
We are looking forward to making versions 3.0 of iHRIS Manage and iHRIS Qualify available for you. But even more, we are looking forward to seeing what users will do with the software. We already have local developers in Uganda and Kenya customizing both systems for their own needs. As more developers contribute customizations and modules, our information systems can only improve for everyone. We welcome all contributions. There’s a lot that still needs to be done.
If you are interested in contributing to this Open Source development project, please contact us.
Posted by
Shannon Turlington on 3/7/2008 • Tags: Development, HRIS, Information Systems, Open Source, Releases, Software, iHRIS
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In reading this article from BBC News on “The Invisible Computer Revolution,” a number of points seemed worth taking notice of. The article posits that a computer revolution is taking place in the developing world without attracting much notice from those of us in the development community. In the industrialized world, we are so used to interacting with our desktops and laptops (like the one I am writing this on right now) that we are ignoring the computer that has already penetrated the developing world: the cell phone. Because we don’t typically use the cell phone for computing tasks, we don’t recognize what a powerful and cheap device it is.
I have written about this before, but I wanted to highlight a couple of other points made by this article. First is the point that demand for cell phones in the developing world is driven by the user, not by nonprofits or aid agencies trying to put cell phones into their hands. We already know that for adoption of technology to be sucessful, it must be demand-driven. Rather than trying to sell a government on a cheap laptop, we should take advantage of the technology that is already in the pockets of so many people. It makes sense, doesn’t it?
Of course, even in sub-Saharan Africa, the fastest growing cell phone market in the world, many people still don’t have access to a cell phone. But the article points out that access has grown much more rapidly in certain sub-groups, such as health care workers–exactly the population we are trying to reach. One application the article proposed was continuing education software for health workers, delivered by text message straight to their cell phones. Why isn’t anyone writing this software? Why aren’t we?
I think those of us working in ICT for development need to start using our cell phones the way our target customers use theirs: to retrieve and transmit information (rather than make voice calls). Then we might stand a better chance of coming up with ideas for technology-based solutions that work in their world, not ours.
For further reading, here is a terrific overview from MobileActive on a variety of ways cell phones and text messaging are being used to solve problems in the developing world.
Posted by
Shannon Turlington on 2/13/2008 • Tags: Cellphones, Development, ICT4d, Mobile Technology, Technology
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I’ve had the opportunity to follow the development of OpenID and related technologies from afar for a couple years. Watching the good work of some friends who have developed ClaimID has opened my eyes to what the hurdles are in keeping a unique identity as we move more and more digital.
Here’s the problem: Identity on the web can be nefarious at best. An email address is at its heart temporary and often not the only unique email one person might have. Who hasn’t either contemplated or actually dumped an email address after a particularly bad week of spam? Identities are also defined online by the many services and sites we might have a login for. Yet these are usually different IDs - we can’t be sure of a person’s identity by looking at various accounts.
ClaimID is a great example of a way to combat this by allowing a person to manage their online identity themselves. Further, they are doing so by using the very simple and elegant OpenID protocol. The concept of OpenID being that we have a unique identity which allows us to log in to various services and sites with one single ID by allowing the services to retrieve credentials from a trusted identity provider of the user’s choosing. This last part being key: “of the user’s choosing”.
OpenID is still very much in a phase where, although it is being adopted by some well known services, it is still in roll-out. Although this means we can’t use our OpenIDs in many places yet, the tools for developers to add OpenID support are available and ready for use.
This could be very important for our work here at IntraHealth. This week there have been a couple of different projects plans come up which have made me think about how we could use OpenID. In both cases it comes down to patient records and tracking. The thought of such use in places like Uganda has made me step back and wonder why this type of implementation hasn’t been talked about much in Western medical records and services development. Perhaps it has and I have missed it, nonetheless I do feel like a tool like OpenID could present the beginnings of the type of security which is needed to provide patients and health care givers records online or on handheld devices.
The trick here is creating the trusted identity provider. In the case of the Ugandan projects we could propose that the Ministry of Health become a trusted provider for a Ugandan citizens “Medical ID”. This ID could then be used on the already growing list of servers and applications which have to have unique identifiers for their patients. The same system could also be used to identify health workers as they pass from systems like iHRIS Qualify to a training center’s application - therefore more easily (and automatically) updating either system’s records on what type of training the health worker has completed. The beauty of the OpenID process is that, if implemented correctly, it allows the patient or worker to be in charge of their own identity and who they trust with the creation and storage of that identity. As long as we keep them first in any design, they win.
Posted by
David Mason on 1/14/2008 • Tags: Design, Development, Software, Technology, Tools
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Shannon recently wrote about mobile technologies and the possibilities that are open to us with the influx of mobile usage in the countries in which we work. What’s equally exciting is what has happened since in the development of open mobile technologies.
Here in the United States we have the worst situation in the world when it comes to openness in our mobile technologies. Our phones are “locked” to particular carriers so that we cannot use them on another provider. This is mostly an historical problem as the carriers originally thought the money would be in selling the devices. While there is some money to make there, the real money comes in selling the service. Nonetheless, we are left with the old model. In the rest of the world the two are separated. One buys a phone then decides which network to go use it on. While most US phones can be unlocked to work with other networks, its not something easy enough for everyone to be able to take advantage of. The disturbing trend set in place by Apple’s iPhone takes the locking another step further to the point where Apple is trying all they can to keep its users from using anything but AT&T.
Enter Google. Google has launched the Open Handset Alliance which has the weight of many companies behind it with the goal of developing an open platform for mobile devices called Android. While they were not the first to start such a task (beaten to it by the OpenMoko folks, they have the name recognition to make a very big splash.
So what does all this news mean for us and our work? I suppose to answer this I go back to IntraHealth’s mission which is to “mobilize local talent to create sustainable and accessible health care.” With an open platform we can more easily introduce the people we are working with in-country to the technologies in which we have developed applications and processes to deliver health care. In this case, applications that can take advantage of the enormous use of mobile technologies in the countries in which we work.
With proper funding the ideas for these application are endless. Imagine a district health care facility with a system that can send a text-message to a patient to let them know a follow-up appointment is needed. Texting is cheaper and easier for most folks in developing countries. Imagine a member of the Nomadic Somali people in North-Eastern Kenya using a mobile phone to schedule an appointment with the health care facility they happen to be closest to on a given day - and then using that same phone to let the provider access their medical history. Imagine a district health office in a very rural area accessing their Ministry of Health’s system via a mobile device when their power goes out. What once was a break in access to communication is now just a switch to another technology. The possibilities are endless, and with an open source platform, they are cheaper to implement and easier to develop on.
Half the fun of accessing these new technologies is coming up with new ways of applying them to old problems. How would you use it?
Posted by
David Mason on 11/13/2007 • Tags: Cellphones, Development, Digital Divide, FOSS, Mobile Technology, Open Source, Technology
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I admit it: I have a love-hate relationship with my cell phone.
I don’t like phones in general, but I consider my cell phone to be more necessary than other phones. It has helped me out in some sticky situations, like when I had a flat tire or needed advice on a difficult buying decision while at the mall. But I don’t like the thought of other people being able to find me no matter where I am, so I am stingy with giving out my cell phone number. And I am rather passive-agressive toward my cell phone, often leaving it uncharged until it starts that annoying “low battery” beeping, usually at 2 a.m.
Still, I must be alone in disliking my cell phone, because everywhere I look, people are talking on them. Cell phones aren’t just popular here in the U.S. They are becoming ubiquitous all over the world. Worldwide there are over 2.7 billion mobile phone users, far surpassing Internet users, TV watchers or even car drivers. In the developing world, especially, mobile phones are leapfrogging conventional wired technologies like landlines and Internet to become a primary communications and information resource.
Last week I was in a meeting with a co-worker who had just returned from a workshop the Capacity Project was hosting in Africa. He shared an interesting learning — that his African colleagues rarely read email as part of their daily work. (What a shock that is to those of us working in an email-addicted culture!) Rather, they would prefer to be notified via an SMS (text message) on their cell phones when an important email message was waiting for them because they were much more likely to check their cell phone messages than their email. Reading the text message would prompt them to go read their email. (Why not skip the middle man and send the email straight to their phone?)
In fact, the developing world is way ahead of us in finding creative ways to use text messaging and mobile phone applications. Here, we still largely use our cell phones to talk. In the developing world, cell phones are used to look for jobs, check daily prices for crops, and get timely health information and services, among many other applications.
In the U.S., we are so used to our daily routine of email and web surfing that we forget that the rest of the world is different. We put content or services on a website, point people to the URL and expect them to just go. We expect our audience to get updates via “pull” methods like RSS feeds and email lists that they subscribe to themselves. But everything comes back to the Web link.
Our audience and clients in the developing world don’t have reliable access to the Internet, and they aren’t in the habit of checking these resources daily or using them as primary sources of information. What they do have is a cell phone in their pocket. The technology already exists for converting email messages and website updates to text messages and vice versa. But those of us who are providing the content have to remember that it’s a mobile world and make our content available in multiple formats, including SMS.
This raises some questions and challenges, of course. Receiving text messages costs money, so any messages we send have to be timely and critical to have value. Text messages have to be short and to the point, which changes the way we write content as well as how we deliver it. Does that mean we should start delivering messages a la Twitter, but with meaning? How do we promote two-way conversation, and more importantly, interactivity — with web-based applications, like iHRIS, for instance — given the constraints of the cell phone? How do we reach people who may use multiple phones or change phones frequently?
MobileActive.org may be a resource that can help. Their mission is to help nonprofits use mobile technology more effectively in their development efforts. Their website provides useful news about mobile technology used in various initiatives, as well as international mobile usage statistics, including number of subscribers, cell phone costs and providers for each country. Another good resource is the Mobile Applications Database, a database of projects using mobile technology to make a difference.
Here we’re also planning to take our iHRIS software mobile and to build a mobile telecommunications-based community health information system as part of the Last Mile Initiative. Stay tuned for developments!
Looks like I’m going to have to learn how to love my cell phone…
Posted by
Shannon Turlington on 11/5/2007 • Tags: Cellphones, Development, ICT4d, Information Systems, Mobile Technology, NPtech, Resources, Telephony
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I had the great fortune to go hear Edward Tufte talk the other day. If you are unfamiliar, Tufte is a Yale professor who is a master at analytical design. He’s written (and self-published) four books on better information display and has even pioneered some new ideas in the field. Though there was a lot to learn in a one day course I will need to think and study much of it some more to start applying those ideas to our work here at IntraHealth. The obvious areas for Tufte’s lessons to work their way in are: interface design in our applications, reporting tools for iHRIS and other apps, our work on data-driven decision making, and the simple presentations we all have to make from time to time.
On presentations, Tufte has always had a lot to say (in the negative) about PowerPoint, and though sometimes humorous he did make it clear that often the bad design that PowerPoint forces on users is used in the dissemination (or more likely not) of very important, and life-saving information. Those are definitely not the times to not be using slow revealed bullet points!
One thing Tufte talked about that I personally want to think about more is the idea that the principle of design is the same as analytical thinking. One must show comparison and causality in design just as they would when simply thinking about the problem. A good chart is one that compares findings with a norm, or another similar scenario and then gives the cause. Yes, all in one chart. Tufte’s books are full of good examples from Galileo to a good newspaper sports page. When considering the amount of information millions of people acquire from the tables of the sports page everyday, it is not so daunting a task to show a similar amount of data to someone who needs to make a decision about the health care in their country. There is no such thing as clutter, there is only bad design.
We, at IntraHealth, are designing all the time. From software applications such as iHRIS, to paper-based public health systems, its all design. As Clay Shirky recently wrote “users are experts in their own lives” therefore “Design is humility.” Something we should always keep in mind.
Posted by
David Mason on 10/19/2007 • Tags: Data Quality, Decision-Making, Design, Development, Documentation
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