The EpiSurveyor project brings high quality electronic data collection and analysis within reach of developing country public health workers by creating free, easy-to-use open-source software for data collection and analysis on mobile devices*, thus extending the benefits of modern information technology to health programs and locations that could never afford it before, and reducing reliance on expensive foreign consultants.

*Mobile devices include cell phones and pocket computers/PDAs (personal digital assistants).

It is unfortunately true that we lack data for many developing country public health problems, and this is in part due to the difficulty in collecting data in resource-poor areas. At the same time, information and communications infrastructure has been steadily and rapidly advancing in many developing countries – but public health has been slow to take advantage of that advance.

Africa, for example, has the highest rate of growth of mobile phone penetration in the world, and many mobile phones in common use in Africa have capabilities beyond the desktop computers of 10 years ago. Despite this, however, the vast majority of data collection in Africa is done with pen and paper, rather than using mobile devices.

Progress has been made in the last ten years in piloting the use of mobile devices for data collection, but every one of those pilot implementations has been characterized by a heavy reliance on expensive technical consultants and programmers.

Clearly, such reliance on consultants and specialists represents an obstacle to further adoption of the technology.

Our vision: to enable developing country health and development professionals to fully utilize modern information and communications technologies without the need for consultants or programmers.

EpiSurveyor software implements that vision by allowing the average person with basic computer skills to very easily create and deploy both simple and complex forms on mobile devices, collect the data in the field or clinic, and then aggregate and analyze the collected data on their desktop or laptop computer.

In this way, we have taken a process that previously required the assistance of technical specialists, usually from Western countries, and replaced it with a process that can be successfully undertaken by anyone.

Milestones achieved

2005 - Creation and testing of a beta version of the software in Kenya, funded in part by the World Bank and the United Nations Foundation (UNF).

2006, 2007 - A two-country pilot program in Kenya and Zambia. In the pilot, provincial health officers in the two countries were provided with a PDA and the EpiSurveyor software with two goals:

1. To continuously collect, analyze, and utilize supervisory surveillance data from provincial clinics

2. To be able to use the PDAs and the software to gather additional public health data as needs arise – without external IT consultants or support.

We are able to report that both goals have been met: in both Kenya and Zambia supervisory surveillance data is being gathered and utilized at both a provincial and national level, enabling the countries to identify, address, and monitor the quality of care provided in clinics throughout the two countries.

Just as important, both countries were able to use EpiSurveyor to spontaneously create additional electronic data collection systems when the need arose, leading to another milestone:

2007 April - Nationwide measles coverage survey in Zambia marks the first completely electronic national survey on mobile devices performed entirely by national staff without assistance from foreign consultants.

2007 December - Successful development of a cell phone version of EpiSurveyor running on Palm Treo phones.

Future Milestones

2008 January - EpiSurveyor rollout: begin training health workers in 10 sub-Saharan African nations on use of EpiSurveyor to collect clinic supervisory data (continuation of pilot) under the auspices of WHO/AFRO.

2008 March - Release of a working version of EpiSurveyor for sub-$100 Java-enabled cell phones.

2008 June - Complete field test of wireless data collection and transmission using EpiSurveyor on cell phones. Discussions begun with Millennium Village Project in January 2008 to coordinate field test.

Release beta version of web-based EpiSurveyor, including the ability to wirelessly "push" forms to users with EpiSurveyor on their cell phones and wirelessly retrieve collected data.

2008 December - EpiSurveyor rollout: Completion of training and implementation of EpiSurveyor rollout with ministries of health in 10 sub-Saharan African countries. 10 additional countries scheduled for 2009.