We keep developing our IMPALA system together with African health workers
April 2023
On the ground, in the field, collaborating for impact. We keep developing our IMPALA systems working closely with healthcare workers in Africa, to make sure it fits the context.
At GOAL 3 we are constantly developing our IMPALA system, to keep improving it for the African context. We believe that working closely with African healthcare professionals is essential when designing medical systems for the African context. Methods used for this entail collaborative co-design sessions and on-the-ground observations, spending many hours working together on improving the tiniest details of the IMPALA system as we believe this is key for local adoption.
Our colleague Lieke de Mare, has been working closely with Malawian Healthcare professionals of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre and Zomba Central Hospital in Zomba, with whom she has co-design sessions to develop the software of our app. These co-design sessions bring together diverse doctors, nurses and community health workers from Malawi. Together they are critically looking at our current system and the needs for Malawian healthcare. During these sessions, they are deciding what changes and improvements are necessary to make for the hospitals.
Next to these co-design sessions, we are trying to be on the ground as much as we can, to do on-the-ground observations. This helps us to understand the daily practices and workflow patterns in the hospitals and to see how they are working with limited resources. These observations enable us to integrate our IMPALA system seamlessly into the healthcare workflows.
By involving these local healthcare professionals, we gain insights into their expertise and their learnings of the general healthcare system. Via these collaborations we can create a better solution and improve our IMPALA system in the right way, to ensure that the developments we made are impactful and relevant to the context. The collaboration with Malawian healthcare workers empowers professionals, enhances patient care, and advances healthcare in Malawi.