Usman Raza
About Usman Raza
Physician with Masters in Health Policy & Management (Harvard University) under Fulbright scholarship. Currently working as Program Officer HIV at The Global Fund's Principal Recipient in Pakistan. Experience in teaching public health and managing health development projects in Pakistan. Holds special interest in Health Information Technology and Health Care Quality.
Role(s) / Profession(s)
- Academic
- Healthcare Employee
- Program Officer
Organization
- Prime Foundation Pakistan
- The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Work Location(s)
- Pakistan
Usman's Communities
Language(s)
- English
- Pashto
- Punjabi
- Urdu
Recent Contributions
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Usman Raza replied to "Integrating M&E for Health Systems Strengthening - April 2-6 2012" in the Integrating M&E for Health Systems Strengthening - April 2-6 2012 panel.
Agree with Ron that once established, the cost of electronic data collection systems is lower than hard forms. However, reaching that stage would entail major changes in the current systems that have been in place for long. In my experience, the behavioural change and acceptance by the data collectors and users, is a much bigger issue than the cost of physical infrastructure required for electronic systems. Yet, some technologies (like cellphones) continue to penetrate even ...
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Usman Raza replied to "Integrating M&E for Health Systems Strengthening - April 2-6 2012" in the Integrating M&E for Health Systems Strengthening - April 2-6 2012 panel.
I am interested in hearing ideas about how the cost of collecting data can be reduced without compromising too much on detail and quality. I believe under-staffing is very much a hurdle, and also believe that feeding information to those who collect data won't help much unless they can link it clearly to their own efforts. And on top of all that, is probably the incentive design applied to the workforce.
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Usman Raza replied to "Unique Identifiers in Resource-Limited Settings" in the Health IT community.
Hi Nathan, We have faced similar challenges here in Pakistan and largely solved the problem using cell phone contact numbers as a patient identifier. It turns out that even the poorest families now own a cell phone here. If that is the case in your locality, this might be a pretty quick and easy way to find records. Granted, several people in a family could be attached to the same phone number, but once you ...
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Usman Raza replied to "Physicians in resource-constrained environments entering patient notes" in the Health IT community.
Hello Daniel and everyone! I believe Pakistan is not much different from what Diganta described. I am currently working at a non-profit hospital to develop some information system components there, and one of the issues we're facing is the high patient load in the outpatient department and the unwillingness of doctors to enter patient data themselves. In fact most doctors here do not believe in the usefulness of collecting patient data electronically. Frequent power outages ...
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Usman Raza replied to "Doctoral programs in Public Health Informatics" in the Health IT community.
I have attached the Excel file as a resource here. Just beware that this is a compilation of select program based on my own understanding of what seemed good. I may have missed some good programs, and would be happy to update this.
Recent Recommendations
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Usman Raza recommended "panel-discussion" in the Integrating M&E for Health Systems Strengthening - April 2-6 2012 community.