Difference between revisions of "Follow-Up Care of Clinical HIV infection and AIDS (FUCHIA)"

Revision as of 19:39, 17 January 2010

FUCHIA or the Follow-Up of Clinical HIV Infection and AIDS is an electronic patient monitoring system for HIV/AIDS patients, developed by Epicentre, the epidemiology group of Me´decins Sans Frontie`res.

Access to medical care and ARV treatment for PLWH/AIDS has to be expanded in developing countries. However, close monitoring of interventions is essential. FUCHIA software was developed to support the management and analysis of longitudinal clinical, biological and therapeutic data of HIV infected patients, and to offer an automated access to specific indicators and statistics used in the programmed monitoring.

The first FUCHIA software prototype was created by Epicentre at the beginning of 2000 in partnership with the technical department of MSF-France and various medical field teams of MSF. Since June 2001, a technical committee composed by members of the five operational sections of MSF (Belgium, France, Holland, Spain and Switzerland) and Epicentre – works on the development of FUCHIA. The development of the software is funded by these five MSF sections.

It was developed as a standalone system using MS Access and the Delphi programming language.

It supports clinical care and long-term follow-up of patients, including scheduling of visits; it includes data on medications and investigations and generates reports. In addition to patient demographic and medical information, FUCHIA is paired with a statistical package and comes with several analyses/reports. One such report is the number/percentage of patients on each ARV regimen. FUCHIA does not perform quantification or inventory control, but pairs with the MSF Drug Order Tool. FUCHIA is used in MSF ART programs worldwide, with support from Epicentre in France.

References: • http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102250107.html • http://www.epicentre.msf.org/tools/fuchia1 • http://www.epicentre.msf.org/research • FUCHIA: a free computer program for the monitoring of HIV/AIDS medical care at the population level. International Conference on AIDS. July 2002;14:abstract no. C11029. Epicentre, Paris, France. • Requirements for an Open-Source Pharmacy Dispensing and Stores Management Software Application for Developing Countries. Levison L, Fraser S F • Implementing electronic medical record systems in developing countries. Fraser, Biondich et al. Informatics in Primary Care 2005;13:83–95