Strathmore University requests support for the scaling of in-country technical and implementing capacity for the expanding open source BLIS
(Basic laboratory Information System) user community across selected laboratories in Africa.
As a background Laboratories in developing countries, have a high demand for test services but are under equipped, understaffed and
compounded by workflow inefficiencies. Strathmore University in collaboration with other implementing partners have developed an open
source Basic Laboratory Information System (BLIS) that was configured primarily for specimen, testing and test results management
supporting functionalities such as lab test equipment interfacing and electronic data transmission to other systems(e.g. EMRs) to reduce
manual workload, decrease turn-around times, and improve quality control, and documentation to meet internationally-recognized laboratory
standards and improve quality of laboratory testing.
BLIS has been successfully implemented in 2 county hospital laboratories in Kenya with ongoing implementations in 10 district/regional
laboratories in Uganda. This implementation experience hand proof of concept has resulted in emerging interest and requests for technical
support from a number of countries including Swaziland, Mozambique and Nigeria. We have also developed a growing community of BLIS
users including developers, implementing partners, lab managers and technologists and the ministries of health stakeholders.
This proposal is a request to support the scaling and building of local in-country capacity to sustainably support BLIS implementation to
laboratories in Africa. This objective will be achieved through the following key activities;
1) Developing and strengthening of the in-country technical capacity through the establishment of the “BLIS Academy” to focus of
developing both offline and online training resources targeting various categories of the BLIS user community.
2) Strengthening the development of the BLIS core modules to support a wide ranges of workflows, services, tests and specimen referral
support.
3) Support the BLIS integration to more laboratory testing equipment and data exchange with other systems.
4) Provide technical support to the BLIS user community and drive the expansion of the community through a well-defined communication
strategy.