Hosted by the GPH Department of Biostatistics
This is a joint seminar by Dr. Philomena Ngugi and Dr. Job Nyameino, visiting scholars in the NYU-Moi Data Science for Social Determinants Training Program.
Digital health is a field that applies digital technology to tackle previous and emerging healthcare challenges. There has been a steady increase in the implementation of digital health systems in Kenya over the past decade and a half. As a result, the production of health data has increased in volume and velocity. However, the availability of these data has not been accompanied by the application of modern analytical methods to derive insights to inform policy and improve practice. In this seminar, we will discuss digital health in Kenya, our research, and how we aim to leverage our fellowship as part of the NYU-Moi Data Science for Social Determinants Program to optimize the use of the data produced by the Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems implemented in Kenya and build further capacity in the field.
About the Speakers:
Drs. Philomena Ngugi and Job Nyameino are the first participants in the NYU-Moi Data Science for Social Determinants Training Program. The DSSD Training Program is a collaboration between New York University, The NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Moi University, and Brown University which is funded by the National Institutes of Health. The program will rapidly expand the local base of expertise via faculty, postdocs, and Ph.D. students from Moi who will visit NYU to take courses and interact with faculty. These participants will then be leading MSc and Ph.D. health data science programs at Moi which we are helping them to build concurrently.
Dr. Philomena Ngugi is a faculty member of Moi University in the Institute of Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Ngugi received her Master’s in Information Technology Management from the University of Sunderland in 2005, followed by a Post-master’s fellowship in Health Informatics with the University of Nairobi in 2012. She received her PhD in Health Informatics from the University of Bergen (Norway) in 2021, where she researched on the status of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) implementations in Kenya. Her previous work has included the development and implementations of various digital health solutions for healthcare facilities in Kenya. Her current research is focused on the applications of data science in health.
Dr. Job Nyameino is a medical doctor and digital health professional who is currently faculty at Moi University’s Institute of Biomedical Informatics. He earned his MBChB medical degree from Moi University in 2011 and then his MSc in Health Informatics from City University London in 2015. He is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Bergen in Norway where his research is in the use of model-driven engineering approaches in the design, development, and use of gamified e-learning systems for clinical training. He has extensive digital health implementation experience and is currently pivoting to data science for health.