Tech gurus will descend upon Washington, DC, July 9–13, 2017, for the Microsoft Inspire conference, which highlights innovative ways technology is being used around the world to achieve tangible results.
BroadReach, a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) partner, supported through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), will be highlighted for its use of technology to transform the HIV/AIDS response in South Africa during a keynote address at Microsoft Inspire. Started in 2003, BroadReach aims to improve access to life-saving healthcare for populations most in need by empowering healthcare workers to work more efficiently through the use of technology.
The Ugu District in KwaZulu-Natal, is ground zero for the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Forty-one percent of pregnant women are HIV positive, which is the highest prevalence of HIV among of any district in South Africa. Knowing what the HIV/AIDS epidemic in an area looks like is key to treating it. Prior to the partnership with BroadReach, collecting data on HIV prevalence in the district took 4–6 weeks. The timeframe between collecting, processing and analyzing data often resulted in a dated and inaccurate assessment of the epidemic. District health managers, overwhelmed by data management, rarely had the information necessary for effective decision-making. The result? Only 61 percent of the people who had HIV knew that they had HIV. Only 65 percent of the people who knew they had HIV were getting treated. And finally, only 42 percent of the people who were receiving treatment were receiving effective treatment.
In order to help South African districts meet the ambitious Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) 90-90-90 goals to help end the AIDS epidemic, BroadReach launched a program known as Vantage to help quickly and easily identify areas where HIV/AIDS testing and treatment targets were not being met. The Vantage software allows health managers to drill down to obtain a detailed perspective on the testing and treatment gaps in as close to real time as possible. Access to such precision data allows health managers to more quickly and accurately create an action plan to improve testing and treatment. Its application for mobile devices allows simple and easy collection and aggregation of data from individual clinics across multiple districts.
Through USAID and PEPFAR support, BroadReach’s technology is showing real results. In the five districts where Vantage is being used to drive decision-making, approximately 99,000 more people know they have HIV, which is the first step to helping slow the spread of the disease. It’s estimated that 95,000 more people are also now on treatment that will prolong their lives, and 86,000 more people are on sustained treatment that works well for them.
BroadReach has harnessed the power of technology to help strategically utilize critical and finite resources where they are needed most. Through its partnership with USAID, health workers in Ugu District have been able to streamline analysis, decision-making and HIV/AIDS service delivery to move closer to reaching the 90-90-90 goals, achieve epidemic control and ultimately save lives.
Learn More
- Discover more about BroadReach Vantage
- Learn more about USAID’s impact on HIV/AIDS
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