A Paediatric antiretroviral therapy management information system

Abstract

Poor adherence to medication regimens is common, contributing to substantial worsening of disease, death, and increased health care costs. There are many unresolved issues regarding the most effective strategies to implement comprehensive HIV care in resource constrained settings.Monitoring and tracking patients especially HIV positive Children on Antiretroviral therapy (ART) are key components of successful HIV Treatment in any setting. The Clinic Mater system that has been designed is be able to handle patient’s data in a most efficient and confidential way. Input screens and specific views designed in the system will enable data integrity and easy access will be enabled to the authorized persons. The System will be able to monitor scheduled appointments of HIV positive Children who are on ARV drugs and need close monitoring by the Health Care Provider. The system is able to assign each patient a unique number. The System was designed using the software development life cycle phases with Ms SQL Server 2000 and Visual Basic .NET 7.0 technologies. Functional and functional requirements were determined. The database design is diagrammatically represented by the use of the data dictionary to show the details of the information held by each entity. The data flow diagrams represent the floe of the information in the system. A design was crafted resulting in the implementation of an efficient system for the ARV paediatric management. This system can be adopted in all health centres all over Uganda who are offering ARV drugs to HIV positive Children. The system is vital for the Health Care Providers(HCP) who are actively involved in the adherence program because it will help them monitor these patients closely hence an effective adherence outcome.