Dear HIFA network,
We have recently looked at patient-held records in Malawi and their usage by healthcare professionals and patients. A preprint is available here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.01.25322650v1
In Malawi, patient-held records for general care have been in use for over 20 years - these are important health records and for some patients especially in rural areas they are the only record of medical history.
While countries such as Malawi move toward digitisation, attention and focus is given (disproportionally) to introducing or adopting additional electronic systems, although paper-based records still play a very important role. Questions such as: should current paper based records be digitised? How relevant are paper based records within an ecosystem of (semi-)digitasation? What does the use of such records tell us about future challenges with data collection and standardisation of digital records? are not often asked and answered.
I wanted to circulate this pre-print and engage with this very knowledgeable audience. Is this relevant to you? It would be good to get feedback.
Thank you.
Amelia
HIFA profile: Amelia Taylor is a Lecturer in AI at Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences. Interests: AI, NLP, Health Informatics, Data Visualisation. ataylor AT mubas.ac.mw