About this Dataroom
The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, University of Chicago, and Love a Child established a field hospital in Fond Parisien, Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake. Several months later, I build a simple EMR system that included a pharmacy registry. This data set is a portion of the pharmacy registry, showing approximately 3 months worth of medicines checked into and dispensed from the pharmacy. Note: staff rotated frequently and the pharmacy registry wasn't used consistently, either for tracking checkins or dispenses of medicine. Also, just because something was dispensed (to a nurse or physician) doesn't mean that it was used; some meds were returned to the pharmacy unused and may or may not have been checked back into the system.
The environment was hectic, volunteer staff were tired and overworked, there were teams from 5 different countries, medicines donated from all over the world, some of which nobody recognized, and 95% of the time there was no pharmacist on site. Nevertheless, we managed to capture some data.
Generally speaking, the amount dispensed is a better record than the amount received and it provides a glimpse into the types of medicines used (when available) in a field hospital, following an earthquake.
More info here: http://www.hhi.harvard.edu/programs-and-research/previous-programs/earthquake-in-haiti
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Yes, I was. One of the physicians took a lot of photos, which you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshallsegal/collections/72157623522900049/
Here's a photo of somebody using the EMR / Pharmacy Tracking Rails app that I built: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshallsegal/4506633821/in/set-72157623697974367/
I have some more photos / screenshots of the app hanging around somewhere.
Yes, I was. One of the physicians took a lot of photos, which you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshallsegal/collections/72157623522900049/
Here's a photo of somebody using the EMR / Pharmacy Tracking Rails app that I built: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshallsegal/4506633821/in/set-72157623697974367/
I have some more photos / screenshots of the app hanging around somewhere.
following the first link, the best photos are in the March 1 - March 6 timeframe
A few more photos of the Rails app: http://bit.ly/n1M1QF and http://bit.ly/r9YuON
I built it on site. The original version took about a day and I added more features (patient tracking, etc.) in the weeks that followed the initial deployment.
momoko
I'm in the middle of going over the thoughts you sent Pete and reworking it as a blog post ... Your job (and problem) is fascinating. I wonder if you've ever used apps from or contributed apps to Ushahidi?
Yes, I know one of the founders of Ushahidi. It can be a useful tool, but hasn't (in my opinion) proven itself following a disaster yet. Again, it comes back to the problem of input and quality of information. In Haiti, many stranded/injured/hungry people sent in SMS messages to Ushahidi to call for help. Their knowledge of the system and ability to access it says nothing about whether they are most in need or whether responders should focus on helping them. Triage is critical in the first 72 hours of disaster response and a firehose of calls for help can muddle response efforts as easily as it can improve them. I think the Ushahidi team knows this, however, and will refine their efforts to provide a focused tool that more people are aware of and use.
The primary challenge for Ushahidi ultimately is the 3-foot problem. How do you get the responders on the ground to a) know of the tool, b) learn the tool, c) use the tool, and d) trust that use of the tool will help them?
Ignore the first version - I just changed the name of the Date column to be more generic.
Hi Clay, just wondering: were you actually on-site at the field hospital during the data collection period?