Dynamics 365 helps Desmond Tutu Health Foundation deal with the new age of health challenges.

The DTHF manages various trials and health interventions in parallel, focusing on HIV and TB in at-risk communities. The Desmond Tutu HIV Centre is an accredited research centre within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and supports the faculty’s research work. Participants who join the DTHF’s studies do so to contribute to making their communities healthier, as well as to benefit from free testing and treatment. Their records must be carefully managed, and communications must be maintained to remind participants of appointments and medication. The data from these studies helps inform local and global researchers about a range of HIV prevention modalities, vaccine candidates, treatment delivery and adherence, clinical trials, groundbreaking new drugs, and innovative technologies to address tuberculosis transmission. In addition to biomedical research, a socio-behavioral division seeks to understand the complex drivers affecting individual health-seeking behavior.

Bridging rigorous academic research with community development programmes, the DTHF collaborates with those most at risk to find innovative solutions in the prevention and treatment of HIV and related infections, and TB. DTHF has established clinical research sites in under-resourced areas where people are at high risk of HIV infection. With the cooperation of community leaders, the Foundation provides opportunities for residents to assist in research studies and programmes. The research includes a range of HIV prevention modalities, vaccine candidates, treatment delivery and adherence, clinical trials, groundbreaking new drugs, and innovative technologies to address tuberculosis transmission. In addition to biomedical research, a socio-behavioural division seeks to understand the complex drivers affecting individual health-seeking behaviour.

While the DTHF did have a legacy bespoke system in place to manage research participant recruitment and record-keeping, the system was not able to scale and support future initiatives. The COVID-19 pandemic was the catalyst driving the DTHF to move to digital, as it needed to continue its work with limited in-person contact and scale up existing activities to include a COVID-19 vaccine research component. The DTHF needed a user-friendly, robust and secure, single-source system that was scalable, customizable, and - crucially – which would ensure participant anonymity while still enabling researchers to collaborate and share the data emerging from trials and research. Because bespoke solutions can prove costly and bring with them their own challenges in future, Microsoft partner Enterprisecloud recommended Dynamics 365 to easily enable basic functions and also tailor services to create a bespoke experience for users and patients.

 A system harnessing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service (aka PIPER - an acronym of DTHF values) and Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services was implemented to align the DTHF strategically to manage and deliver on a diverse range of healthcare services and clinical research trials. Its scalability and integration capabilities allow expansion for future projects, enabling seamless delivery on customer expectations. Because it is cloud based and location independent, it enables the DTHF to collaborate across multiple sites and with UCT researchers; providing single source, real-time access to data. The system delivered quick and easy study setup and configuration and improved efficiencies and reporting. It automated booking and scheduling of participants using a visit calculator based on protocol specifications, and achieved anonymity for participants while still supporting direct communications via messaging. 

Fast-forward for DTHF work

The new system enables the DTHF to enroll and manage study participants faster and more efficiently, and to customize the tools to support multiple use cases. Teams on the ground report that they have been able to easily communicate with the participants and enable virtual ‘clinic visits’ and doctor’s consultations, achieve clean, quality data, and can also deploy the system for areas of work such as appointment scheduling, reimbursing participants, connecting different sites, and creating a ‘recruitment pool’ database. One primary objective was to enable the DTHF to be flexible and to take on new research studies. Its new capabilities were demonstrated as soon as PIPER went live mid-lockdown, and the Foundation was able to move quickly to participate in global vaccine trials. The Desmond Tutu Health Foundation was a participating clinical research site in the Johnson & Johnson Phase 3 ENSEMBLE clinical trial, enrolling just over 500 participants at three sites at the end of 2020. The trial contributed to a massive global effort to assess the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

The DTHF subsequently activated other studies and clinical trials on PIPER, and is now evolving the system to support other areas of work, such as managing medicine distribution as part of their mobile health services offering. The DTHF team notes that diseases will always be present, but appropriate technologies such as their PIPER system support efforts to research and combat these diseases. The future looks bright for research, they say.