New People
Another new person showed up today, besides the people that I was expecting. A guy named Troy, UCSF med guy, doing some clinical studies over here.
The day has been busy, mainly with logistic stuff actually. For those of you interested, one part of my job this summer is to make sure that the malaria surveillance data that we collect from seven sites in Uganda is good data- not missing any fields, and most definitely not huge misentry mistakes. There are 2 really obvious places where this data in the end can get majorly screwed up- the first is the person who writes it all down- if they mess up or make mistakes, it's bad, but not something that we can control or change about the system very easily (for a variety of reasons, one of which is the whole "if you make me do work, I should get more pay" issue). The second place where big errors can come along is the person who actually enters the handwritten stuff into the computer.
This has a potential to be a big problem, on rare occasions, because the personal information for each person is entered across 2 normal 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper. When we photocopy this stuff in the field we get 2 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper, which are hard to align properly since the binder paper lines are often too faded to use as guidelines. Most of the time, no problem- but if there ever was a misalignment problem, there's a big chance that 60-70 entries on that page might get mixed up pretty badly. To prevent this from happening, we've thought of a few solutions 1) bring a photocopier that can do long sheet photocopies 2) bring a scanner and laptop that can do the same 3) take a digital camera photo, then print it out on long paper. Because someone else has done it, and it seems possible, we decided to go with option 3- but before we actually put it into practice, we've taken a few practice photos, and want to hook up a laptop to the Canon photocopier we have here in the hospital, and use the photocopier to print out long sheets of data.
Decent idea, but no printer cable- so among other things (buying power converters and power strips, bedsheets for the house, exchanging cash) I have to run a lot of errands today, and go to a few meetings. It's nice actually to be busy, and not have to be coding in front of the computer all day without getting anything really physically done.
We leave tomorrow morning early to go to Tororo. Will bring back pictures and be back Thurs night, hopefully (early departure Wed morning, spend a few hours in Tororo, then late departure and overnight in Lira, which is near Apac, then a full day at Apac on Thurs, then late departure for Kampala, or so I think the plan is).
The day has been busy, mainly with logistic stuff actually. For those of you interested, one part of my job this summer is to make sure that the malaria surveillance data that we collect from seven sites in Uganda is good data- not missing any fields, and most definitely not huge misentry mistakes. There are 2 really obvious places where this data in the end can get majorly screwed up- the first is the person who writes it all down- if they mess up or make mistakes, it's bad, but not something that we can control or change about the system very easily (for a variety of reasons, one of which is the whole "if you make me do work, I should get more pay" issue). The second place where big errors can come along is the person who actually enters the handwritten stuff into the computer.
This has a potential to be a big problem, on rare occasions, because the personal information for each person is entered across 2 normal 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper. When we photocopy this stuff in the field we get 2 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper, which are hard to align properly since the binder paper lines are often too faded to use as guidelines. Most of the time, no problem- but if there ever was a misalignment problem, there's a big chance that 60-70 entries on that page might get mixed up pretty badly. To prevent this from happening, we've thought of a few solutions 1) bring a photocopier that can do long sheet photocopies 2) bring a scanner and laptop that can do the same 3) take a digital camera photo, then print it out on long paper. Because someone else has done it, and it seems possible, we decided to go with option 3- but before we actually put it into practice, we've taken a few practice photos, and want to hook up a laptop to the Canon photocopier we have here in the hospital, and use the photocopier to print out long sheets of data.
Decent idea, but no printer cable- so among other things (buying power converters and power strips, bedsheets for the house, exchanging cash) I have to run a lot of errands today, and go to a few meetings. It's nice actually to be busy, and not have to be coding in front of the computer all day without getting anything really physically done.
We leave tomorrow morning early to go to Tororo. Will bring back pictures and be back Thurs night, hopefully (early departure Wed morning, spend a few hours in Tororo, then late departure and overnight in Lira, which is near Apac, then a full day at Apac on Thurs, then late departure for Kampala, or so I think the plan is).
posted by Vince at 1:48 AM
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