The Fund for Internet Research and Education – FIRE Africa – is Africa’s leading Grants and Awards programme designed to encourage, support and develop innovative online solutions to Africa’s education, information, infrastructure and communication needs.

Case Study: Development and dissemination of an Integrated Management System for Continuous Medical Education - Kenya

Project: Enhance the access and delivery of Continuous Medical Education (CME) material to doctors and improve monitoring and reporting of CME activities by the Medical Board. This, in-turn, gives the doctors more time with the patients, who ordinarily would not be seen because the doctors have to travel long distances to learn (which is a mandatory requirement for yearly re-licensing).

Organization: Synergy Informatics
Country: Kenya 
Category: E-Development, FIRE Africa Grants 2013

Making it Happen
Synergy Informatics secured a$10,000 FIRE Africa Grant in 2013, which was used to complete the development of the Portal. It also helped the team to scale the operation to provide continuous learning opportunities to over 5,400 Medical Practitioners and Dentists in Kenya. "We held several training sessions across the country to teach doctors and content developers on the use of the portal," says Isaya Opondo, project leader. "This helped us to create content for doctors and access the training material as well as reporting their progress to the Medical Board (Regulatory Body)."

Impact

As a direct result of the Grant, the CME reporting via the system grew from 10% per year to 75% per year, with an average of 13 CPD activities per doctors reported/taken via the portal.

Testimonials

• "The ICPD platform has been a great tool in facilitating keeping track of our educational meetings. The flawless and hassle-free automated process of issuing and claiming CPD points has seen a great increase in interest and participation of our members and stakeholders in various events. It has definitely made my job as an administrator easier." -Phoebe Kagame CPD Coordinator, Kenya Society of Anesthesiologists.
• "Having iCMS managing a section of our core function which is Education and Training, the system has helped the Board in enhancing and improving business processes including compliance, licensing and retention." -Dancun Mwai, ICT Officer Medical Practitioners and Dentist Board.

Update 2015
Today it is mandatory for every doctor and dentist in Kenya to report their learning progress via this Portal. Over 85% of the registered and practicing doctors are using the Portal. Of these, over 60% regular access originates from rural establishments. Synergy Informatics has further connected to other content provision portals to meet the different needs of doctors across the country with the aim of expanding throughout the region. The team continues to provide training and support for newly registered doctors as well as for content producers on the use of the Portal, and also runs impact assessment on the wait times at clinics/hospitals. The team also reports on rates of malpractice reporting as a result of this intervention.

More about FIRE Africa

FIRE Africa provides funds for projects, initiatives, tools and platforms that harness the power of the Internet to empower the local and regional community to solve the region’s unique online communications problems. Since we ran our pilot project in 2007 to identify innovative ICT solutions to the challenges faced by local communities, FIRE Africa has grown into a fully-fledged programme that has helped over 30 initiatives in 16 countries over the last eight years.

Calling all African innovators and Entrepreneuers
Have you got a great idea? Does it use ICT to solve an issue in your community? If your ideas are aligned with one of our funding categories, you could have the chance to win a FIRE Africa Award or receive a FIRE Africa Grant.

Calling all Potential Sponsors and Partners

FIRE Africa is actively seeking organisations and individuals to support Internet-based innovation in Africa. We have a wide range of sponsorship and partnership packages available and can tailor packages according to your needs. In addition to funding, FIRE Africa’s partners and sponsors offer their experiences, advice and regional insight so we are constantly aware of innovation initiatives taking place out in the community.

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