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IICD supported project: Keneya-blown
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Sectors: health
Summary
The project Keneya Blown, or in the local language of Bamanan 'Health Portal', was started in September 2000 as a pilot project. During this pilot phase a network between two regional and all national hospitals was established and a website with medical information was developed. The project has reached its second phase, which aims at improving the services developed during the pilot phase of the project: raise awareness about ICT for health, extend the number of health workers reached with the project, offer medical training on-line, develop skills to produce local medical information, train health workers in the use of ICTs and offer internet facilities to the health sector.
Update
Updated: 2008-02-04
Training and awareness creation activities were further developed in 2004. In total, 80 people from 5 hospitals have been trained through this project in basic ICT use during 2004. The Reimicom/Keneya Blown team organised a basic training workshop for 18 health professionals in Kayes (October 2004) and in Bamako (December 2004, 16 participants). The December workshop in Bamako was also attended by IICD’s Capacity Development Officer, François Laureys, to assess the (progress of the) training qualities of the Keneya Blown trainers and hand over an IICD training certificate. Work continued on re-vamping the <a href="http://www.keneya.net">Keneya Blown website</a>. Most of its set goals have been achieved and the project performed a large majority of its intended activities. There has been a lot of national and international attention. Some weak points of the project (content production) will be addressed during 2005.
Introduction
The actual project name still is Keneya Blown, while the name REIMICOM (Réseau Informatique Malien d’Information et de Communication Médicale, in English Malian Information Network for Medical Information and Communication), is now being used for the Malian NGO that is executing the project.
The project started as Projet Pilot de Télématique de Santé (Pilot Project on Distant Health Information). It was the subject of the final thesis of Dr. Ousmane Ly, supervised by Professor Abdul Kader Traoré at the medical faculty of the university of Bamako and financed by the Swiss State Department and University Hospital, both at Geneva (Switzerland). The pilot project established a national network of e-medicine, linking different health institutes at Bamako and two regional hospitals in Mopti and Ségou.
Other achievements were:
- Distant consultation on neurology with the patient in Bamako and the expert in Geneva
- Distant consultation on leprology with the patient in Geneva and the expert in Bamako
- Monthly distant education courses, originating from Geneva and since August 2002 also from Bamako. Health workers from Timbuktu, Ségou, Nouakchott (Mauritania), N’Djaména (Chad) and different organisations in France and Switzerland participated in these sessions.
- Distant consultation on radiology: X-rays taken in Bamako were diagnosed in Geneva
- Establishment of the medical website www.keneya.org.ml
As a result of the round table on health, organised by IICD and the Centre National d’Appui à la lutte contre la Maladie (C.N.A.M, National Information Centre on the fight against Diseases), REIMICOM applied for a partnership with IICD to sustain and extend the pilot phase of the project.
The Keneya Blown project is the result of this initiative.
Objectives
The objectives of the project are to improve the quality of service of the public health sector via Internet access to medical information and to provide medical training.
Planned outputs
Development Impacts
The beneficiaries of the project are not only professional health workers but also the general public with access to internet.The services offered by REIMICOM aim at improving availability of updated medical information and to facilitate access to this information. Improved medical services will be the result of the project and a direct and positive impact on the general health status in Mali is expected.
Management and organisation
REIMICOM unites official medical institutions, NGO’s working in healthcare, the medical university and health professionals in Mali. REIMICOM aims at contributing to PRODESS by using ICTs to improve the quality of service of the public health sector via Internet access to medical information and to medical training.
The project Manager Ousmane Ly is a graduated doctor, with excellent ICT-skills (self-taught). He is actually working on his PhD, which will make him the first Médecin en Télématique in Mali. The executing Manager Cheikh Omar Bagayoko also is a graduated doctor, with good ICT skills. The core of the rest of the team of Reimicom consists of medicine students in their last years of study, all of who have developed a passion for ICTs in health. Five of them have been trained as trainers by IICD in 2003 and 2004.
Market and finance
The general services will be offered free of charge to anyone with access to internet, the specialised services for health professionals have to be paid for by the hospitals, private persons or through medical associations of specialised health workers.
Results
The project did achieve most of its set goals for 2004. Since the second phase of the project started the following has been achieved:
- Procurement of necessary equipment and installation of a server room in the hospital Mère et Enfant (Luxembourg);
- The interim manager of the project followed a three months training on medical information systems at the university of Rennes (France);
- Participation in the tenth French language medical information days in Tunis (Tunisia);
- Training workshops for end-users in Ségou, Mopti, Kayes, Sikasso and Bamako;
- Production of content: “Keneya Bataki” a monthly newsletter on medical happenings; update of medical links on the website; E-learning on line between Bamako and Geneva; and,
- Participation in WSIS, December 2003, Geneva (Switzerland)
Lessons learned
During 2004, a few weak points on the level of project organisation and technical design became apparent. The project heavily relies on its founder Ousmane Ly, who was on study leave in Europe during a long period in 2004. And although other team members took over large parts of his responsibilities, his absence regularly led to a flaw in swift decision making. It also became clear that content creation for the website had been underestimated. As a result, the website was not updated on a regular basis. Finally, the Internet connectivity provided by Sotelma often proved to be unreliable, and the server of Keneya Blow’n regularly went down. Some issues could be addressed during 2004 (e.g. IKATEL was contracted for the Internet connection), while some others (content, server) should seriously be addressed in the extension proposal that is being developed.
Budget
The second phase of the project started with a budget of 80.000 euro for the first year. An extension proposal for one more year has been approved mid 2005.
Project Owner : REIMICOM (Réseau Informatique Malien d’Information et de Communication Médicale - Malian Information Network for Medical Information and Communication). Keneya Blown website
Project Partners : IICD, Hôpitaux de Genève, Medical University of Rennes and Rouen, Société des Télécommunications du Mali (SOTELMA, Telecommunications Society of Mali), C.N.A.M, Centres de Santé Communautaire (CSCOM, Community Health Centres), International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), Health on the Net.
Project Contact : IICD
