KNCV tuberculosis foundation contracted the IT support services of iMarketing Consultants during an ongoing TB prevalence survey. This survey is among selected communities in Zambia and South Africa under the name of ‘TREATS’ [ Tuberculosis Reduction through Expanded Antiretroviral Treatment and Screening for active TB – https://treatsproject.org/]. A consortium of partners, led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), work together to measure the TB outcomes of an intervention. One of the outcomes is TB prevalence. KNCV Tuberculosis foundation is leading the TB prevalence survey under TREATS. The survey is designed fully digital.
In the absence of an existing solution for digital survey data management for this survey, iMarketing Consultants was contracted to custom develop a solution to address the needs based on the technical design of the Data Management Solution (DMS). Based on this design captured in a survey protocol and Data Management Plan, iMarketing Consultants was able to support the development and testing of the DMS including digital data collection on site at different locations and at subsequent phases with new requirements as the project developed. iMarketing Consultants also designed and implemented solutions regarding connectivity. All digital tools, including on-site participants interview results, lab screening results based on complex algorithms that run automated in the DMS, are connected to a centrally managed server. Next to the digital design development, iMarketing Consultants have been directly involved (and still are since the survey is ongoing) in the implementation of the system both in Zambia and South Africa.
In summary, the solution consists of an offline mobile application which enumerators use to register candidates for the survey at their homes. Using GPS services, the location of the households is being captured. With the aid of an interface application also delivered by iMarketing for connecting to bluetooth printers, barcodes can be printed for the invitation cards of eligible candidates as well as to label consent form and sample collection tubes.. Additional to the offline application and printing interface, a web application that automates field operations was also developed so key implementation decisions can be taken in real time without error. This application automatically receives the enumerated candidates from the mobile application and guides the data collectors at the various stations. To ensure quality of data, the application interfaces with external systems like CAD4TB and GeneXpert and pulls results from these systems automatically in real time. As a final step to the design, the locally collected data is then regularly synced to a central server, from which dashboards and reports serve relevant stakeholders with a mechanism for monitoring the survey almost in real time.
