In the past few weeks, EpiSurveyor Mobile was used in Ghana in a recurring USAID and PMI (President's Malaria Initiative) activity to calculate critical indicators that are commonly used in PMI decisions.  Ghana is one of the 18 countries that conducts this quarterly activity.  The pilot team, led by John Snow Inc., tested EpiSurveyor Mobile against the pen-and-paper method at various health facilities in Western Ghana. From our customers: "The initial results suggest that it was as quick or quicker at the facilities to use the phones.  Our data gatherers enjoyed the experience, and we are leaving the four phones here with our office to use when the activity rolls around again in October."

During the data collection, changing a form and re-distributing the new form to the surveyors in the field was a frequently performed task.   "It was driven home to us that no matter how much prep we do beforehand, our forms will change as we meet with the Ministries of Health and work with them to address their needs." The task of re-distributing the forms is easily done on EpiSurveyor by simply re-downloading the form on phones, and not so easy for the pen-and-paper method.   Now with a successful pilot in Ghana, we are integrating new ideas and lessons learned into the next release of EpiSurveyor.