Cape Town – A medical application, which has been developed in Cape Town to determine the level of sickness of patients, will see its developers – two local doctors – acknowledged internationally this week after they were selected as finalists in the Echoing Green Global Fellowship contest.
Dr Mohammed Dalwai and Yaseen Khan, both from Athlone, will today jet off to New York for the award ceremony.
Their NGO, the Open Medicine Project, developed the Mobile Triage app that has received recognition.
The fellowship, which had been running for the past 27 years, rewards social entrepreneurs from any part of the world who are driving social change in their communities. Anyone who has an “innovation idea that disrupts the status quo” may apply.
The two doctors are among 105 of the most promising social entrepreneurs working in 44 countries around the world.
Their triage innovation, which is based on the SA Triage Scale and replaces paper and pen triage, allows healthcare workers to perform triage accurately, efficiently and safely by facilitating the identification of danger signs and symptoms.
It then colour codes them according to priority such as green, orange and red – allowing doctors and nurses to assess whether a patient needs to be seen urgently.
The triage system, which is the process of sorting patients according to urgency in emergency settings, is crucial in the healthcare environment as this determines whether a patient needs an emergency treatment or not.
In busy and large clinics or hospitals nurses often come under a lot of pressureto determine who needs urgent treatment. If they get this wrong, it could have devastating consequences, including complications and sometimes death.
Khan estimated that over 100 000 patients in the Western Cape are incorrectly assessed each year.
Unlike the pen and paper triage system, which was open to errors, the Mobile Triage app is not only error-proof, but allows health workers to access information about a patient in real time – allowing them to make better decisions immediately, therefore achieving better results for patients.
Dalwai said additional to its accuracy the app also enabled calculation of emergency drug dosages for children requiring resuscitation, as well as shock index as an early indicator of shock in patients.
At the health facility the app was installed on a facility-based device, which was either mounted or attached to a mobile trolley, and linked to a printer.
“After a nurse triages a patient on the app, results are printed and placed with the notes. The information is also electronically synced and displayed on a dashboard for doctors to easily see the information and manage the mass of patients better,” said Dalwai.
The app was also enabled to generate important data on patient numbers and demographics.
Congress of the People (Cope) spokesman Dennis Bloem congratulated the two doctors – saying the app would cut down chances of making serious mistakes.
He encouraged the wider use of the free mobile app.