Community story: Use of CHT by frontline health workers to improve hypertension management in Nepal.
Duke Kunshan University and Dhulikhel Hospital Kathmandu University Hospital team have leveraged community health toolkit (CHT) to improve the management of hypertension in Nepal. The project aims to optimize management of hypertension in rural Nepal by empowering frontline health workers (FLHWs) and female community health volunteers (FCHVs) through CHT.
With a goal to optimize a community health program for hypertension control, the team has implemented applications in Bethanchowk and Panchkhal municipalities of Nepal. With 28 FCHVs and 22 FLHWs users from 9 health facilities, the findings from the project showed that 294 people above 40 years were screened for increased blood pressure. 176 (59.86%) of screened patients were provided service by FLHWs using CHT. Out of 176 screened patients, 51 (28.9%) are new case detection at health facilities. Furthermore, 93(53%) hypertensive patients received awareness messages. The team also presented a demo of the application and shared challenges as well as feedback from their implementation experience. You can view the recordings for the community story here.
CHT Updates:
Beside community story, we also had various updates on CHT which are summarized below. You can also view the recording on other CHT updates here.
1. Enketo 7 uplift
The feature release of CHT 4.6 will include an uplift to the most recent version of Enketo. Enketo is the open source project that CHT uses to render all the forms and do all the calculations of the fields. The findings suggest that with this feature release it gets faster to process the forms. You can read more about it in the CHT forum post here.
2. Search by barcode and other updates:
-
The barcode feature is released and available which supports search by barcode. The CHT had the ability to scan the barcode using the camera but could not search based on the barcode. This search functionality by barcode has now been added to CHT. You will find an icon that looks like QR Code next to the search icon to use the barcode functionality. The app treats like normal search and looks up based on the id after scanning barcode via phone camera. You can also find more details in other CHT forum post here.
-
In the CHT app, when you navigate to the Reports tab, you can find that there is a hyperlink to the patient which when clicked takes directly to the patient information in the People tab. Similarly, in the Messages tab, you can see there is also a person’s name but it was not hyperlinked. With the new release 4.6, it has now changed to hyperlink.
-
The team has added more detailed information on documentation towards syncing. These information addresses frequently asked question related to syncing. You can read updated documentation here.
-
Furthermore, the default branding for the CHT has been updated. Earlier Medic logo was used as a default logo for the CHT app but now it has changed it to the CHT logo. However, this default logo can always be changed via settings.
3. CHT Sync Updates:
The ecosystem team shared their learnings from production deployment which are listed below:
- Having cht-sync and database running on different servers will have advantages over having them running on the same server.
- SSH tunneling on Superset is disabled by default but it is essential to set up SSH tunneling on Superset to secure the database. The team will be updating the documentation on how it can be enabled.
- The team will also be posting update on how to properly setup the DBT model so that there is not constantly refreshing of the views. Whenever views are rebuild or refreshed one may get errors while querying. The team will be adding best practices on how to properly setup DBT models to avoid views on being constantly rebuilt.
- The team is also streamlining the deployment process which will be added in the future.
4. CHT 4.5.0 Release:
We had posted earlier about CHT 4.5.0 release in CHT forum post here which were also mentioned during the call. CHT 4.5.0 release addresses following:
- You can now create SMS Schedules with start_from array which addresses the need to change the way SMS were sent in Nepal. With this feature users can now pass multiple fields and the first existing field will be used to create schedules.
- Target components are updated to match material design.
- Outbound tasks can be now configured on a schedule.
Thank you for your continued participation and engagement in CHT Round-up call throughout 2023. We greatly appreciate all your support. Our first CHT Round-up call for 2024 will be on January 11, 2024. We hope to see you again at the next CHT Round-up call.