CHITS - Community Health Information Tracking System

 

CHITS (Community Health Information Tracking System) -- let me quote the whole of their About page to describe CHITS since I do not have exposure to health care.

CHITS is short for the Community Health Information Tracking system, a free and open source software electronic health record system for local government health centers in the Philippines. CHITS was created by Dr. Herman Tolentino through a grant from the International Development Research Centre of Canada. Since 2004, CHITS has been expanding to rural health units around the country.


CHITS is being managed by the UP Manila – National Telehealth Center. It is an integral part of the “Using Computers and Cellphones to Improve Local Health Information Systems” program.


Director and CHITS Program manager: Alvin B. Marcelo, MD

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So basically CHITS is, imagine, an electronic version of doctor's chart. When you go to your doctor for a check-up or something, her / his secretary will hand her your record which is usually a piece of paper with the history of your past check-ups.

Now, why would we bother with electronic medical record?

Katherin Kuan, an MIT student and part of the SANA team, made a research regarding the health care system in the Philippines entitled, Delivery of eHealth and Telemedicine Services to the Philippines From a Sustainability Perspective. Cited in her paper is the following statement:

"There is a disconnect between what is happening on the ground and what those needs are compared to the policies being made in the PhilHealth headquarters. Hence, there is a tremendous need for electronic documentation of care to ensure quality care."

You might say we don't need computerization of our medical records, we need medicine. But as stated in one of CHITS blog posts, it provides information for decision making. So in case of baranggay health care centers, if their records are in electronic form like CHITS, the concerned departments can easily get a quick overview of the statistics of the diseases. As such, government offices can then provide proper allocation of the correct medicines. Because as reports said, baranggay health centers do not really lack medicine supplies. The problem is that they have the wrong supply of medicines thus stocks going to waste.

CHITS made a pilot implementation in Pasay City, where they also implemented an SMS reminders functionality for pregnant women for their pre-natal check-up. Then, they also expanded to selected areas of Tarlac for pilot testing.

You can take a look at the CHITS application from their demo page. Following are screenshots I made of CHITS application.

Screenshot of Community Health Information Tracking System (CHITS)

Some of the people involved in CHITS are: Dr. Alvin Marcelo (TOYM awardee), Eric Pareja, and Alison Perez. If you are interested to be part of CHITS team, and improve our healthcare system, you may check with them. Just imagine working on a social network site that helps improve people's lives.