NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, May 19, 2014

The application is developed by MicroClinic Technologies with technical support from Microsoft under the 4Afrika initiative. ZiDi trials are being run in 6 health centres and public dispensaries in Kiambu and Kisumu counties and the Gatundu Sub District Hospital, that serves in excess of 3,000 patients monthly. ZiDi™ automates stocktaking, personnel administration, financial management and service delivery in these health centres.

Cofounded in 2012 by Hoffman Moka Lantum and Mary Matu, ZiDi was started with the aim of tackling the administrative burdens faced by medical staff in dispensing health care at medical institutions. For example, each clinic submits eighteen paper reports monthly requiring over 60 man hour days per year. The nurses track over 160 commodities manually on bin cards and send to the Kenya Medical Supply Authority (KEMSA) through the county offices via courier. Personnel attendance is tracked on sheets with a full moon for full attendance and a crescent for part time attendance. These administrative duties detract from the core duties of health workers, who end-up dissatisfied and demonstrates the gaps in technology adoption in the health sector in Africa that ZiDi seeks to fill. “ZiDi is trying to transform and bridge the digital divide in the health sector at a very fundamental level using the opportunity technology offers in the health space. The application runs under Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud coupled with Microsoft’s productivity suite, Office 365 to channel real time secure communication between health centres in different locations, and facilitate scalable access to backed up data.” says Matu.