I’m pleased to announce that our paper entitled “An Information System for Good Start III – The Role of Web and Mobile Technologies in a Randomised Control Study” has been accepted to be presented at the Health Informatics of South Africa conference taking place in Johannesburg on 6th and 7th July 2009. The paper is the result of a collaboration between the Medical Research Council and Clyral, with the paper being co-authored by Petrida Ijumba (MRC), Mark Fowles and myself.

The presentation will highlight the methodologies, strategies and technologies utilised in the design of the Good Start Management Console (GSMC). The GSMC is a web-based system which was built to leverage the Mobile Researcher Application Programming Interface (API) to allow the activities involved in a large-scale randomised control trial to be closely managed and monitored. Community Health Workers (CHWs) make use of low end mobile phones and complete simple surveys which are fed back directly to the GSMC.

Mark will be presenting the paper as I will be overseas, so if you’re in Johannesburg during those dates and are interested in health informatics, be sure to register – the conference is sure to have a number of insightful speakers and perspectives.

If you’d like to learn more about the GSMC, the case study is a good place to start.