Use of an electronic medical record to monitor efficacy of diabetes care in out-patients in a central hospital in Malawi: Patterns of glycaemic control and lessons learned

The Malawian health sector has a strong tradition of systematic data collection for monitoring and evaluation of large-scale services. A highly successful adapted Directly Observed Treatment, Short course “DOTS” framework, based on patient registers and paper-based mastercards was introduced to facilitate the management and monitoring of the scale up of antiretroviral therapy. Subsequently, a simple, touch-screen based electronic medical record system (EMRs) was effectively introduced at high burden ART sites. Based on this model, in 2010, a diabetes specific EMRs was introduced in the diabetes clinic at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital. In this paper we report on the first 3 years experience with the diabetes EMRs. We highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the diabetes EMRs and present data on glycaemic control recorded in the system.