Hospital software in Dire Dawa

Dire Dawa is a chartered city and the commercial hub of eastern Ethiopia, on the rail and road corridor to Djibouti. Its public referral hospital, Dil Chora, and a sizeable private sector serve not only the city but patients travelling in from the surrounding Somali and Oromia areas and from Harar.

A patient population that arrives from several regions brings several languages to the front desk, and patients who travel far are the ones most likely to return without their card. CareLink registers each patient once with a hospital-wide identifier and finds them again by name and phone, and staff can work in Amharic, Afaan Oromo or English on the same system. Commercial Dire Dawa also pays electronically more than most cities; Chapa payments are reconciled to the visit as they happen.

Facilities here usually start with registration, outpatient, pharmacy and billing — the parts of the hospital every visiting patient touches — and add inpatient once the front door is running smoothly.