Leo Celi – IT website that improves communication for volunteer medical missions
Category: Resident
Communication between and within groups that travel on volunteer medical missions is notoriously inadequate. Resident developed an easy to use website facilitates
communication - so all participants can communicate with past, present and future volunteers
Ciarán DellaFera – Computerized organizational tools for health care programs in Zambia
Category: Student
While doing clinical work in Zambia this summer, the student encountered two programs that required technological solutions to organizational problems. The first program was an outpatient
pediatric malnutrition program at a clinic named Bwafwano. The paper-and-pencil record-keeping that the nurses were accustomed to was time-consuming and unhelpful for estimating the food supplement needed at 4 different sites, monthly ordering expectations,
and enrollment tracking. Student designed a simple spreadsheet that the nurses, despite poor computer literacy, could use. The second organization is called Ubuntu, which UMass Medical helped to establish, that assists the disabled with medical care
and other support. They were set to receive a substantial grant while student was in the country, which would require them to report costs and service delivery on a semi-annual basis; they were not equipped to do this. He designed a user-friendly
database tool that could keep records of clients, volunteer workers, service delivery, and program costs, and automatically generate reports on these latter two for the grant-providing agency.
