Starting November 2007, VitalHealth is supporting a third world development project in Ethiopia, by providing its software for recording patient medical records. So far, a community of 1200 residents has received a medical evaluation by Geriska Poortman, a Dutch pediatrician of the Harderwijk hospital.

Families of 6 persons or more, an annual income of no more than 300 dollars, a single bathroom for 30 families and a single well: these are the conditions where the organization “The Well” provides aid with the financial support of the Reborgh Foundation. The Well started its aid project in the little village of “My Dimu” in Ethiopia. The project has four parallel areas of focus: infrastructure, healthcare, education and economic development.



In November this year, the Dutch pediatrician Geriska Poortman travelled to Ethiopia to perform a medical evaluation of the residents of My Dimu. In cooperation with an Ethiopian physician, she saw 1200 patients, of which 700 were children. Patients with acute medical conditions immediately received medication, or were referred to a local hospital.

To initiate a structural improvement in the local healthcare, an electronic medical record was created for each patient seen.

One of the social objectives of VitalHealth Software is to apply its knowledge, experience and software offerings to the need for healthcare in underdeveloped countries. With that objective in mind, a web-based Electronic Medical Record solution was modeled using the VitalHealth Platform, in order to support the electronic needs of healthcare projects.

After returning to the Netherlands, Geriska Poortman intends to continue to provide care to a number of patients with more serious conditions. To that effect, the online nature of the EMR solution enables her to easily provide her input to the local Ethopian physicians. The solution itself is hosted in the Netherlands, with high standards for data security and availability.



In the future, The Well Foundation intends to use the EMR for additional healthcare aid related projects, as it enables them to provide better care with fewer people.