S2 Episode 5: Helping nurses, saving lives - with Samuel Mugisha of Tatu Nurse

 This episode is about the impact of digital health and entrepreneurship in resource-poor settings – in this case in  East Africa. It’s always inspiring to see how big problems get solved in countries where financial support – for healthcare, for innovation and often for basic essentials is in really short supply. 

My guest is award-winning social tech entrepreneur Samuel Mugisha of Uganda-based social enterprise Tatu nurse. Sam graduated from the University of Manchester in 2018 with a MSc. Advanced Computer Science. He also has an MBA, and 8 years’ experience building e-health applications for resource poor settings.  He is cofounder at Stre@mline; an Electronic Medical Records platform, where he led product design, development and strategy. Over half a million Ugandans are now on the platform, which is used in 21 hospitals in rural Uganda. 

Tatu nurse is a mobile phone application that enables nurses to work smarter by providing them with the right information at the right time, hence improving the efficiency of bed side monitoring.  

Tatu is a Swahili word that means three. Their mission is to boost the performance and efficiency of nurses by at least 3 times. They recognise the heroic role played by nurses and that they need better support to do their work better. 

Tatu nurse fits in the daily routine of nurses enabling them to manage the many patients under their care efficiently. Tatu nurse is tailored to the specific context and needs of low-resource hospitals, has local technical support available and is economically sustainable. They have a patient-centered, practical and integrated approach focused on improving the quality of nursing care.