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Improving health through ENCS software 

By Russ Cooper

The General Studies Unit (GSU) in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science is transforming the way a small Caribbean country provides health care and social services.

Until now, St. Kitts and Nevis has used a paper-based system to maintain the medical and social service records of its citizens. "In the late 1990s, the [Kittian] government instituted a network of local clinics that offered a full range of cradle-to-grave family medicine," explains General Studies Unit Assistant Professor and Associate Chair Deborah Dysart-Gale. "This extensive home health care network involving professionals, family and community members resulted in a unique closeness within families. We're developing an online system that retains this unique quality in a culturally sensitive way, and doesn't turn people into numbers."

During a stint in 2003 working with the St. Kitts Department of Social Work and Community Development, Dysart-Gale (whose background is nursing and communication) thought about potential improvements to the system. Returning in 2005, she had a conversation with the department's director who stated there was indeed an interest to update to an electronic info management system.

When she came to Concordia in 2006 to teach in the GSU, she and GSU Chair and professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering Thiruvengadam Radhakrishnan figured it was a perfect opportunity to bridge community development and engineering.

Radhakrishnan and his PhD student Kristina Pitula have developed a prototype with St. Kitts' unique family-centric perspective in mind that allows nationwide access to records at the click of a button.

"One simple example that illustrates this was our design of the drop-down menu that identified ‘relatives’ as ‘spouse, child and other’; but our users insisted they needed to know ‘cousin, aunt or uncle, brother or sister’. The information our original menu selections would have given them wouldn't reflect the way they think or talk to each other about a case," says Dysart-Gale.

The team is also helping health care workers improve their communication skills through professional writing workshops.

"Currently, a typical written report might include a recommendation much like, 'poor children in township X need subventions to buy school uniforms.' This doesn’t get much traction with donor organizations, NGOs or the government," she says. "The workshops show them that with the database information available, they can write much more effective recommendations. For example, '17 families in township X live under the poverty level. The 25 schoolchildren from those families do not have the means to purchase necessary school uniforms. The following funds are required'."

After testing the prototype in September with the help of a post-doctoral fellow Daniel Sinnig, the team is now working on the final version. "It remains to be seen how this changes the way the social work department views its work and professional practice," she says, "But the department in St. Kitts is very conscious of the Concordia connection, and proudly refer to it as the 'Concordia Information Management System.’ That makes us feel like a million dollars!"