fEMR

When Sarah Draugelis volunteered in medical clinics in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, she noticed a lack of continuity between volunteering clinicians, largely because of the lack of record keeping. Determined to do something about it, Sarah, a pre-med student at the time, returned to the U.S and co-founded Team fEMR with Dr. Erik Brown and Kevin Zurek.

Together, they built a team of volunteer students, doctors, and engineers to develop a free electronic medical records system that would improve the quality of care provided to some of the world’s poorest populations. It’s called fEMR (Fast Electronic Medical Records), and has been used by medical schools and nonprofits from across the country traveling to areas in India, Haiti, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic. It has also been implemented into undergraduate Computer Science courses across the country. In fact, every term, there is a new team of developers from the University of Texas, Florida State University, and Wayne State University who contribute to the software – for a grade!

The medical teams, however, travel to remote locations without access to the Internet or power, so Team fEMR had to be creative with how to create a secure and reliable network. They were successful in creating equipment, but they need more, and we’re going to help them. Our AWB grant will allow Sarah and her team to purchase another set of equipment, so two teams will be able travel together at the same time, ultimately creating greater impact in the area.

Check out the team’s website here, test out a demo, and consider supporting their work, too! If you follow Sarah on Instagram at @SarahDraugelis, you will quickly find out that she is also an AWESOME dancer!!