The Hope Center for Infectious Disease, one of the busiest HIV-AIDS clinics in Kenya, relies heavily on data to provide its patients with the right treatment.

Today, software donated by Verity Inc. and scanners given by Fujitsu makes working with that crucial data more efficient, more accurate and safer for the patients, said Michael Chung, MD, an infectious disease fellow at the University of Washington, who helped establish the clinic in 2004.

The center is a joint effort of the University of Washington and the Coptic Mission Hospital in Nairobi. The clinic is supported in part by President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a $15 billion initiative to treat AIDS and prevent the spread of HIV in resource-poor countries.

When the clinic first opened, clinicians saw about 10 patients a day. Today, they see 80 patients a day and enroll 200 to 300 new patients a month. Since it opened, the center has enrolled more than 2,000 patients and treated 1,000 HIV-positive individuals with free antiretroviral medications.

Patients on antiretroviral medication need to be tracked closely, said Chung.

The growth of the clinic coupled with the complexity of the treatment – medication must be taken twice daily with no interruptions – creates mounds of data.

The clinic, which is in the process of developing an electronic medical record system, turned to Verity for help with its ever-growing data. Not only did Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Verity provide the software for free, it persuaded its partner Fujitsu to donate two scanners.

Anthony J. Bettencourt, Verity's president and CEO, said Verity is pleased to help when it can on a case-by-case basis. He said Verity is "pretty active" on that score for a small public company.

With Verity technology in hand, the clinic staff created a form that standardizes questions asked of all patients. The forms are then scanned into a computer and converted to data using Verity TeleForm software.

"It's accurate and fast and very powerful," Chung said. "It's very far advanced for this part of the world."

"We really needed a way to record people's history and medication and CD4 count," Chung said. "For us information is key to better care."

The information is also critical when it comes to wooing donors who like to look at statistics before making a commitment.

"Verity TeleForm software used in this setting is a powerful testimony to its ability to achieve accuracy rates approaching 100 percent," said King Holmes, professor and director of the University of Washington Center for AIDS and STD. "The physicians, clinicians and other healthcare workers appreciate the ease, speed and reliability of Verity TeleForm to input growing amounts of patient information."