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Minister of Health visits NHI pilot site

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SARRAH provides funding and technical advice to partners working in the South African health system and the national response to HIV and AIDS. The main focus of the programme is support for the Ministry of Health's commitment to improving the health of all South Africans. SARRAH is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and managed by HLSP, an international health agency. Read more ...

PARTNERS

SARRAH supports national initiatives to strengthen health and HIV.

Key partners are

The programme supports civil society organisations, such as the Treatment Action Campaign, that monitor and advocate for expanding the HIV and AIDS response.

SARRAH will support an oversight committee on HIV and AIDS and the Health Portfolio Committee to provide parliamentary oversight and accountability of the health system and HIV response.

We also work alongside international development partners and multilateral organisations.

MHEALTH TRAINING FOR DFID DG

DFID Director-General of Policy and Global Programmes Michael Anderson received some basic training in mHealth at a rural clinic in Gauteng Province in March.

Cell-Life Training and Support Manager Lusanda Ntoni showing Mogale sub-district Area Manager Albertina Xaba and DFID DG, Policy and Global Programmes, how to operate the mobile monitoring and reporting system

Anderson was one of 22 people, representing the Department of Health, the private sector and development partners, who crammed into the clinic office where a novel mobile monitoring and reporting system is being piloted. Mobile phones were handed out and participants invited to put the new system to the test by entering antiretroviral therapy data from the clinic register into the phones and uploading the information to the National Department of Health’s central database.

The system works in real time: once uploaded it is possible to access and analyse the data almost instantaneously. By comparison the manual system currently in use takes 129 days to move data from health facilities, via sub-district, district and provincial offices to the national database.
Anderson was impressed by the speed of the system and the simplicity of the data entry process. This was seconded by Area Manager, Albertina Xaba, who mastered the system with ease, despite her claim to having been born “before technology”.
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WHAT'S NEW

Dr Jennifer Dixon of the Nuffield Trust has some useful lessons for the NHI from the experience of the UK's National Health Service. View... 

NEW PAGES

Mobile phones for health monitoring. Read...

Communications materials, National Core Standards. Read...

DOCUMENTS

NHI Conference Report. Lessons for South Africa. Read...

Overview of Health Sector Reforms in South Africa. Read...

SARRAH Impact Assessment, inception report. Read...  

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SARRAH BLOG

DFID Senior Health Adviser, Dr Bob Fryatt blogs about NHI pilots and mHealth initiative...

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