Browsing by Author "Sibanda, T."

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    Adaptation and implementation of local maternity dashboards in a Zimbabwean hospital to drive clinical improvement
    (World Health Organisation, 2013-11-27) Crofts, J.; Moyo, J.; Ndebele, W.; Mhlanga, Samson; Draycott, T.; Sibanda, T.
    Problem:The Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health of the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that national health outcome data were often of questionable quality and “not timely enough for practical use by health planners and administrators”. Delayed reporting of poor-quality data limits the ability of front-line staff to identify problems rapidly and make improvements. Approach: Clinical “dashboards” based on locally available data offer a way of providing accurate and timely information. A dashboard is a simple computerized tool that presents a health facility’s clinical data graphically using a traffic-light coding system to alert front-line staff about changes in the frequency of clinical outcomes. It provides rapid feedback on local outcomes in an accessible form and enables problems to be detected early. Until now, dashboards have been used only in high-resource settings. Local setting: An overview maternity dashboard and a maternal mortality dashboard were designed for, and introduced at, a public hospital in Zimbabwe. A midwife at the hospital was trained to collect and input data monthly. Relevant changes: Implementation of the maternity dashboards was feasible and 28 months of clinical outcome data were summarized using common computer software. Presentation of these data to staff led to the rapid identification of adverse trends in outcomes and to suggestions for actions to improve health-care quality. Lessons learnt: Implementation of maternity dashboards was feasible in a low-resource setting and resulted in actions that improved health-care quality locally. Active participation of hospital management and midwifery staff was crucial to their success.
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    Production of Cellulase by Solid State Fermentation of Brewery Spent Grains Using Aspergillus Niger FGSCa733
    (Zimbabwe Journal of Science & Technology, 2015) Ncube, T.; Moyo, N. P.; Sibanda, T.
    Brewery spent grains (BSG) is a waste product of the brewing process. BSG has been used as animal feed, production of value added products, substrate for growth of microorganisms and for extraction of proteins and acids. BSG is high in lignocellulosic matter and may be a candidate substrate for the production of lignocellulolytic enzymes (cellulases and xylanases). In this study, BSG was evaluated for use as a cheap and readily available substrate for the production of extracellular cellulase by Aspergillus niger FGSC A733 during solid state fermentation. The brewery spent grains were subjected to fermentation by Aspergillus niger FGSC A733 at different temperatures ranging from 30 - 40 °C and initial pH ranging from 4.0 - 6.0 for process optimization. Time course analysis was done to determine the optimum incubation period for maximum cellulase production. The effect of alkaline pre-treatment of the substrate on the production of cellulase was analyzed. Cellulase activity was determined by estimating the amount of reducing sugars produced by the enzymes using 3.5 dinitrosalycyclic acid (DNS). Maximum cellulase production was at 35 °C, pH 5.0 and an optimum incubation period of 72 hours. Under optimized conditions, a yield of 73.33 U of cellulase/gram of substrate was obtained. Pre-treatment of the spent grains resulted in a three-fold increase in the production of cellulase. BSG was found to be a suitable substrate for production of cellulase.