Thank you all for joining our March 2025 Round-up call. You can catch up on the highlights by watching the Round-up recordings: Community Story MSF, Release updates and Community introduction. Please see the summarized notes from the call below.
Agenda 1: MSF Swiss presentation on adaptive vaccination workflows & Peer-to-Peer Feature for Offline Data Transfer
MSFeCareVaccine, has been developed over the past four years in collaboration with CHT. The presentation covered the following:
- Overview of MSF eCare implementation across 10 countries and 52 health facilities (including both MSF and Ministry of Health facilities).
- Current algorithms for pediatrics, young infants, vaccination, and a new STI module being piloted in Swaziland.
- The objective of MSF eCareVaccine: addressing missed vaccination opportunities in humanitarian settings by helping health workers prescribe the right vaccines at the right time.
- A demonstration of the adaptive parameters module that allows customization of vaccination schedules based on local health policies.
- Pilot results showing improvements in:
- Assessment of contraindications
- Explanations provided to caretakers
- Accuracy of vaccine prescriptions
- Overall quality of care
The MSF eCareVaccine solution is designed to be adaptable to various contexts and patient groups, including routine childhood vaccination, catch-up campaigns, pregnancy vaccination, and special populations like migrants and people with specific comorbidities.
MSF plans to make the solution available to the broader community in the future.
MSF’s peer-to-peer (P2P) data transfer feature addresses the challenge of data synchronization in areas with limited internet connectivity. This solution allows:
- Data transfer between tablets using Bluetooth
- Collection of data from multiple “consultation tablets” onto a single “supervisor tablet”
- Transportation of only the supervisor tablet to an internet access point
- Synchronized upload of all collected data to the server
This feature is particularly valuable in remote settings where bringing all devices to an internet connection point is impractical. The presentation included a step-by-step demonstration of the workflow for transferring data between devices.
There was significant interest from community members about implementing this feature in other contexts, particularly in areas with connectivity challenges.
Agenda 2: CHT Release Features - Version 4.1.7
The latest features of CHT version 4.1.7 include two key enhancements designed to improve functionality and user experience. See below:
- Technical Improvement: Replaced the deprecated request-promise-native with fetch
- The request-promise-native library was deprecated in 2020 and no longer supported.
- After upgrading to Node version 22, the team was able to use the built-in fetch API.
- This change brings better security updates and ongoing support from the Node team.
- UI/UX Change: Added a password reset page, see details below:
- Addresses security concerns related to how projects distribute user credentials.
- Previously, administrator-created passwords were sometimes stored in spreadsheets and shared among supervisors, creating potential security risks.
- The new feature requires users to change their password on first login, enhancing security by ensuring that only the end user knows their password.
- When an administrator resets a user’s password, the user will also be required to change it upon next login, eliminating the need to share or document temporary passwords.
- This approach mitigates security risks by reducing password sharing, eliminating long-term storage of credentials in unsecured locations, and enforcing proper password management practices.
- For projects that may find this feature disruptive, there’s an option to add the “can skip password change” permission.
During the call, a live demonstration of the new password reset feature was presented, showcasing its functionality and ease of use.
Agenda 3: Community introductions - Welcome Sentinel Digital
The Sentinel Digital team introduced themselves to the CHT community:
- Shashank (based in India): Brings expertise in development sector experience, grant funding, and community engagement.
- Samuel Okwalinga (based in Uganda): Software developer who has been active in the CHT community forums since 2023.
The Sentinel team shared their journey with CHT:
- First exposure to CHT in 2023 while developing a maternal and reproductive health tool for USAID in partnership with Veritas.
- Completed courses on the CHT Academy and worked with the documentation.
- Overcame initial challenges with setting up CHT on Apple M1 machines with help from the community. See discussions here and here.
- Officially became CHT technical partners in 2024.
- Successfully upgraded the immunization workflows for PIH Malawi from version 3.1.12 to 4.1.5 (also tested with 4.1.7).
The team expressed interest in contributing to documentation, CHT example apps, and addressing issues on the forum and in the app itself.
They also inquired about joining existing community squads such as the documentation squad and SSO squad, to which it was confirmed that all squads are open to new members regardless of technical level.
Q&A and feedback
Throughout the call, participants engaged in Q&A sessions covering:
- Technical questions about the MSF eCareVaccine workflows
- Implementation of the peer-to-peer data transfer in different contexts
- Security enhancements in the new CHT release
- Opportunities for community participation in ongoing development squads
Thank you for your continued support in keeping our community engaged and informed. We look forward to your continued support and collaboration.
The next CHT Round-up call will be held on 10th April 2025, see you there.. If you have topics you’d like to present or discuss in future calls, please let us know in the replies below.