DHS projects vary in size and scope, from large hospital deployments to four-district NGO programmes and single-clinic callback layers. Across all of them, similar operational conditions and recurring problems shape what the software needs to do.
Today · St Mary's
Outpatient · Tuesday morning
Cases
47
Avg wait
18m
AI prep'd
12
Healthcare software in Sub-Saharan Africa has to cope with conditions that are routine for the sites where it runs. The four conditions below shape how DHS architects the platform, from offline behaviour to onboarding to reporting and audit.
Most sites where DHS operates experience internet drops daily and occasional power outages. The software is designed to keep working through both, sync cleanly when the signal returns, and avoid asking staff to re-enter cases after an interruption.
Reception handles cash, mobile money, and insurance claims for the same patient cohort in the same shift. DHS unifies these payment channels into a single workflow inside the reception module, including support for M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, and the National Hospital Insurance Fund.
Reception clerks and clinical staff change roles regularly across the sector. DHS designs onboarding so a new staff member can be productive within two days, with screen layouts and field labels that explain themselves without extensive training.
Ministries of health, donors, and internal audit teams require case-level logs, exportable reports, and clear handling of patient data. DHS treats reporting and audit as core platform features available from day one of a deployment.
These six problem areas come up regularly in conversations with hospital owners, clinical directors, and programme leads. The descriptions below outline what DHS typically delivers in each one.
Hospital reception · inbound calls
Large hospitals often handle hundreds of inbound patient calls per day with a small reception team, leading to lost calls and repeated callbacks. DHS replaces the single phone line with a shared queue covering WhatsApp, USSD, walk-ins, and phone callbacks, all visible to reception on one screen.
Clinic operations · appointment workflows
Outpatient clinics often see high appointment no-show rates due to missed reminders and limited follow-up capacity. DHS adds SMS and WhatsApp confirmations tied to the case record, with reminders scheduled twenty four hours before the appointment and reporting visible to the operations lead.
Clinical workflow · consultation prep
Clinicians often spend a significant share of a consultation reviewing prior notes and recent lab results. DHS uses AI to prepare the case in advance, including structured symptoms, the relevant labs, and a short history, allowing the doctor to read the brief in well under a minute.
Rural and regional sites · specialist access
Patients at district hospitals often need consults from specialists based in larger urban centres. DHS provides telemedicine inside the patient record, with video where bandwidth allows and asynchronous notes where it does not, so the specialist works from the same chart as the local team.
BP
124/82
Temp
37.4
HR
78
Administration · reporting and oversight
Hospital owners, NGO programme leads, and foundation donors need visibility across multiple sites at once. DHS provides operational reporting on case volume per channel, staff load per role, and appointment reliability per clinic, exportable for board meetings, ministry reports, and donor updates.
Field programmes · community health workers
Community health programmes often rely on paper forms collected weekly and entered manually at headquarters. DHS provides offline-first field intake on whatever phone the worker already uses, with forms syncing automatically once the device sees a signal and data available to the programme lead within a day.
Pick what fits · build what doesn't
The Nairobi and Kampala offices handle delivery in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and parts of South Sudan, DRC, and Ethiopia. Beyond East Africa, DHS runs smaller engagements with foundation partners in Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia.
East Africa focus
Active work in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, with smaller engagements further west and south.
Deeper engagements include on-site time across the project lifecycle, while lighter engagements are coordinated remotely from Nairobi or Kampala.
The platform is built from the same module library across all four client types below, with the contract structure, project speed, and engagement size adapting to each organisation's setup.
Multi-site rollouts with shared patient records across locations and operations dashboards covering the needs of medical and finance leadership. Engagements typically start with one anchor hospital and extend across the network over six to twelve months.
Lighter projects that begin with a single high-impact workflow such as a callback layer or appointment system. DHS adds modules at the clinic's pace, building up to a full platform over time as the team grows comfortable with each piece.
Programme-driven work covering field intake on the devices community health workers already carry, reporting for both programme leads and donors, and integrations into existing monitoring and evaluation systems where they are in place.
Collaborative builds with health ministries, regional authorities, and international organisations. DHS integrates with existing DHIS2 deployments, FHIR endpoints, and partner reporting standards, usually starting as a pilot in one district.
DHSAFRICAA short note about the site, the team, and the current operational challenges is usually enough for DHS to propose a starting shape for the project. We aim to reply the same working day.
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