The IT team

The IT team for PIH consists of Fraser, four programmers and an administrative person, all based in Boston. There is no resident programmer in Haiti.

"We have Haitian IT and data management staff supervising about 20 data-entry staff at the various clinics," Fraser said. "There is also specialist IT support in Boston for satellite links and advanced networking. We were recruiting a new IT or programming person to work in Haiti this spring."

In Rwanda, PIH has a resident team of four U.S. programmers and has just added 10 Rwandan Java/OpenMRS programmers, who are working with the government's ministry of health on EMR implementation.

What's next?

Fraser said his team is at work on cell phone-based tools for data collection in various projects around the world and may soon use these tools in Haiti.

Some big-name technology companies – Dimagi, Google and Thoughtworks – have offered to help on various projects, he said.

"We would greatly welcome assistance with programming (Java) and funding to expand the information systems team in Haiti," Fraser said

Boston-Haiti ties

PIH co-founders Paul Farmer and Jim Yong Kim had been working in the area for years when they founded Partners in Health in 1987. It has ties with Boston-based Partners HealthCare, recognized for its leadership in healthcare information technology. Farmer and Fraser serve as attending physicians at Brigham and Women's Hospital, part of the Partners HealthCare system, and both teach at Harvard Medical School.

Partners HealthCare CIO John Glaser said Partners has served as adviser or consultant from time to time. "But since they are independent of Partners, they have funded and managed their own IT work," he said.

Partners HealthCare recently sent teams of physicians and nurses to Haiti, Glaser said.

Farmer, an anthropologist and physician, is the Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard University and an attending physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Farmer's work and that of PIH are the subject of Tracy Kidder's 2003 book "Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World."