Heroes Without Scrubs Featuring Uzma Qureishi Artwork

Tech Talk Africa

Welcome to Tech Talk Africa, the podcast that highlights the latest developments from Africa's thriving tech ecosystem. Join us as we explore innovations, challenges, and triumphs of African tech entrepreneurs and developers.

In each episode, we discuss trends shaping Africa's future—from fintech and e-commerce to agritech and healthtech—featuring conversations with those on the ground sharing their insights and experiences.

Whether you're a tech enthusiast or curious about Africa's potential, Tech Talk Africa is your guide to the continent's exciting digital revolution. Get ready to be inspired and informed!

All Episodes

Tech Talk Africa

Heroes Without Scrubs Featuring Uzma Qureishi

July 11, 2026 • Tech Talk Africa

0:00 | 35:36

What are your thoughts?

Tech Talk Africa | Season 2 Episode 09: Heroes Without Scrubs

Guest: Uzma Qureishi, Senior Manager EHR Operations at AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, EAST AFRICA

Some of the most important work in healthcare happens far from the bedside, and it still saves lives. I’m joined by Uzma Qureishi, an award-winning health IT leader who’s helped transform hospital care by keeping patient safety and real clinical workflows at the center of every digital decision. From the very start, her story is personal: watching her mother navigate cancer care shapes a career built on impact, not titles.

We get into what it really took to deliver a fully integrated electronic health record and run a major go-live with a 157-person command center. Uzma breaks down why legacy systems and scattered standalone tools create chaos, why stakeholder engagement can’t be a checkbox, and why subject matter experts like physicians, pharmacists, and surgeons must help build things like order sets and standardized care pathways. If you care about healthcare change management, health informatics, and EHR implementation that actually works, this is the playbook.

Then we tackle AI in healthcare with honesty. Radiology AI can speed up reads, but only if governance is tight: ethical use, security assessments, downtime planning, and strict data privacy aligned to Kenya’s Data Protection Act, not generic global claims. We also talk mentorship and internships, building local health tech capacity, and what it means for women in tech to “take your seat” and own it.

If this conversation sparks something for you, subscribe, share it with a friend in healthcare, and leave a review so more people can find the heroes without scrubs.

Credits
Host:

Stella Gichuhi

Producer:

James Njoroge

Executive Producers:

Harry Hare
Agutu Dan

Heroes Without Scrubs

Stella Gichuhi 0:02

Heroes, they come in all shapes and sizes. This time I sat with a hero without scrubs. You heard it right. The hero without scrubs.

Uzma Qureishi 0:12

As you say, um, I know I don't talk much about it, but then I let it go. I was like, okay, and after that, you know, uh I got an opportunity to submit my paper, our paper to Videological Society of North America. And um me and my co-lead, we went to Chicago and Stella, I was six months pregnant, and I had I had a lot of complications. Oh. And I had to do an ultrasound every two days. And in my head, I'm thinking to myself, I have to go and present this because I was the only uh hospital from East Africa presenting on that platform.

Stella Gichuhi 0:46

That is the reality for one Uzma Qureishi. On this episode, I sat with the hero who does not wear scrubs, but transformed a whole healthcare system. A woman, a champion, and best of all, the lady who ensures that the patient care at hospitals is at the heart of every digital transformation. A lady who understands the importance of the subject matter expert. She had to sit with surgeons to devise and design the requirements of this technology platform. And she did it whilst grieving, raising her children, being herself, and she still has a smile because for every hero without scrubs, it's always about the impact. A lady who won a CIO 100 Gold Award was a finalist for the CIO DX Nova Award and was 2025's Top Woman in Digital Transformation. Tune in, listen to the episode, and let us know what you think. That's it from me, Stella Kishui.

Meeting Uzma And The Mission

Stella Gichuhi 1:50

Miss Usma. Hello, Stella. Hi. Hi. I'm so happy you're here with us today. I'm excited to be here and it's an honor. Thank you so much. Usma, what can you not do? You're child keeping women in health, you're fighting for patience and there are codes in health. Guys, if you do not know about Usma Koreshi, please go read about her. But let's get

A Family Story That Changed Everything

Stella Gichuhi 2:16

into it. What inspired you to get into health tech?

Uzma Qureishi 2:20

You know, my background was not even in healthcare tech. Oh and my mum was diagnosed with cancer and uh she was admitted in hospital, and I was I was studying in Australia and I came back. Okay. And I I was when I was I I literally used to live in the hospital, you know, with her. And I that's when I realized that I don't know, I feel like being here. I want to be part of this, I want to change a few things. And I think from then on, I just felt like this is where I belong. And I come from a family that I feel like, you know, seeing my grandmother, my aunt, my my uncles, my mom and dad always helping. Okay. And I wanted to change people's lives. But I didn't know how, and how can I do it? And when I got this opportunity to implement, it was a legacy system at the Khan hospital at that time. And when I got that opportunity to be part of that, I saw how we could change. We were doing, we were implementing a project, we were, you know, creating process flows, but at the back we were touching a human life. Yes. And when I used to come home, I just used to feel so content that I could do something. And there was, I remember a process I changed in lab. And my mom was one of the patients that actually benefited from that process, and that is was what was my starting point.

Stella Gichuhi 3:51

So you're driven by impact? Yes. For you wasn't just about the salary, no, the big title. They're good, they're cushy, I mean, but for you it was always has been, always will be impact. Impact. And how have you seen health tech transform and change over there since you started until now? And when

COVID Pushes Paperless Healthcare

Stella Gichuhi 4:08

we're talking about health tech, there's now the system side, which you're very conversant with. Yes. And you're the boss there. And there's now telemedicine, and then actually, point I want to raise was COVID. How did COVID transform work and life for you guys?

Uzma Qureishi 4:25

Wow, yes, I remember those days. You know, when you were, I remember that, you know, when everybody was focusing on the clinicians and nurses and saying, you know, you're heroes to go going to the hospital. But at the back, we we also had to go get to work. And we had to make sure that the systems were on for the clinicians to work on and, you know, provide that treatment to the patient. So COVID really, I think, made us stronger because we we looked at how can we make this less, you know, uh paper. Like we don't need to have paper because that time even holding a pen was infection control. You know, let's not have this. So we started brainstorming and saying, how could we make this more digit digital? At the point at the time when COVID actually struck, I remember I was in Dubai having a conference on the EHR we were implementing. Yeah. And a few of us got sick in on the plane. Why? And that was a start of COVID. And we had no idea, and and it was also the start of our huge EHR implementation. And I remember we had to, in no country, yeah, has an EHR been implemented like we have these dictionary buildings.

Stella Gichuhi 5:39

Yes, yes.

Uzma Qureishi 5:40

It was just a black, blank canvas given to us, and we had to build our dictionaries. And when I say dictionaries, that meant clinical and non-clinical. The team had to come down from the United States and South Africa to help us do this. Now COVID struck. And so we had to completely change the whole implementation project and say, okay, we need to do this online. So I think I have to give it to our teams here. Yeah. The local teams were amazing. You know, we we got together, we we some of us used to, you know, a few days be at home and then come to work. And so I would say that we're heroes without scrubs.

Stella Gichuhi 6:18

The heroes in health without scrubs. Yes. I like that. Wow. So it's six years later, there's been change, there's been transformation, then there's this, then there's this

AI In Healthcare Needs Guardrails

Stella Gichuhi 6:32

tech. I don't know, it's not, it's not even tech, because that's my space. AI. AI is disrupting life as we know it. But we're not giving it the spotlight or the conversation or the highlight, whatever you want to call it, it deserves in health. What are your thoughts?

Uzma Qureishi 6:48

I agree, Stella. Yeah. There is a lot of hype about AI in the health sector. Yeah. Personally, I really want AI is already there. Yes. Um, we're already seeing AI. Like, for example, you know, we did a pilot run of AI in in our radiology department to see how AI can, you know, read our X-rays faster than you know a radiologist can. But of course the radiologist has to, you know, read through it and authenticate it. So AI is already there. And there is some component of AI in our EHR, which is the Meditech Expanse. Yeah. But you know, implementing AI in healthcare is not just like implementing AI in any like a bank or any, you know, organization like that. Yeah. Anything we implement touches a human life. Exactly. So we have to be really, really careful. And that is why, you know, we get so many vendors coming in, you know, saying we have this AI platform, would you like to see it? For me, I feel like it has to be ethical. Yeah. We have to align with the Data Protection Uh Act of our country and governance. It's really important. So I think looking at all that, I feel like AI is going to come. It's going to help our clinicians, definitely. It's going to help our operations. It makes life easier. But we have to be very cautious, especially in healthcare.

Stella Gichuhi 8:15

You know, I want to touch on something because I champion AI, but about a week, no, last month, an AI model went dark. We'll say we went dark. We we couldn't access fable mythos, that's Claude, right? Yeah. Then they went back online. And a question I had with another guest was what if a hospital, what if you, now you're here, what if you built a system on top of a model that you could no longer access? Wow. What would that look like?

Uzma Qureishi 8:47

So I'm so glad you asked this question because you know, I I feel like there are healthcare workers out there that want to create their own AI platform. So there is this AI tool, say Claude. And they can make anything. Yes. Okay. But this is what we're where we want to go out there and educate that it's very easy to use an AI tool. But where is this data being stored? Yeah. Who the security of this data? Just as you said, the downtime, you know, we are so particular at the at the hospital that we have backup systems when a system goes down because again, it's linked to patient care. So you have all the like right now, we are paperless. So everything is on the system. So when you have an AI and you are creating something and you have no access to their back end. Exactly.

Stella Gichuhi 9:37

Yeah.

Uzma Qureishi 9:38

They go down. You're down as well. And your patient is compromised. And your patient is compromised. And for us, that is why we, you know, sometimes we are us the healthcare IT department is somehow looked at as maybe a showstopper or a roadblock, but we're not that. We're just trying to be really cautious. So what we want is that you want to have an AI tool, yes, but we have to ensure that it goes through global security assessment. It's key. And we pass it through our legal department.

Stella Gichuhi 10:10

There there are certain industries that you have to be extra vigilant. Yeah.

Uzma Qureishi 10:15

It's so we're in such a critical, you know, I would say the organization is is we have we have patients' lives there that we have to look at. So anything we implement, that is part of it as well. So I feel like, you know, when we want to implement something or when we're looking at AI tools, it's not that we don't want to do it. We are we we advocate for it. Yeah. We want it. It's gonna make our life easier as well. IT, you know. But we need to, that's why I say that we need to do it ethically. Yeah. We need to look at governance, and we need to look at the data protection of the country that you are operating in. You know, a lot of people come and say, we're GDPR accredited, we have HIPAA, but we're in Kenya. We're in Kenya. It has to be context-specific. It has to, exactly, you know, so we're in Kenya. So we need to look at what our data protection act says. When you say we, are the is it the vendors who need to look at it, or is it the hospital at large? Who? Really good question. Uh Stella, I love that question. You know why? I think both.

Stella Gichuhi 11:19

Yeah.

Uzma Qureishi 11:19

Vendors come to us, yeah, and they go they take us through this whole AI platform, and then just to realize that the data is going to be stored in cloud. And where's your cloud stored? Somewhere, somewhere around the world, Dubai, UK, US, you know. And that is already, you're not, you're not meeting the data protection regulation. And so I feel like vendors need to align with that first. And for us, yeah, Stella data is so key. For us, we it's a big it's patient state.

Stella Gichuhi 11:50

Patient data. So there's a leak. I'm coming for you. No, no, it's true. Exactly. In this day and age where, you know, you post a photo of a club revela without their consent. That's the ODPC on your case. 1.5 million, half a million.

Uzma Qureishi 12:07

Then ODPC is very, very particular when it comes to healthcare.

Stella Gichuhi 12:12

Yeah.

Uzma Qureishi 12:12

We have to ensure that no PII, that's patient information, uh, goes out. So that is something that we have to really take care of. And I am proud to say that, you know, with our legal teams at the hospital and our security teams and us and IT, we are very careful about that. I like that. You're very passionate about that.

Stella Gichuhi 12:36

Have you ever had an instance of observed an instance where you've implemented, you've spent all this money, hoorah, but nobody's utilizing what you've what you've implemented or it's not working.

Replacing Legacy Systems For Integrated EHR

Uzma Qureishi 12:48

So luckily, I think in in the right now, currently, whatever we I think we we must have learned a few lessons in the past, okay? When we had our legacy system. Yeah. Very old. Okay. And we got, because our legacy system was not a fully integrated system, we got different standalone platforms to integrate with the legacy system. That was a that must have been a headache. It was it was chaotic. Whoa. And that was the reason why we took the rip and replace um strategy of saying we are shutting one down and we're switching on the other. And that was the biggest step we took, but I think it was amazing because of this. And so I feel like that was a lot of it was a high cost, right? Yeah. You're integrating every standalone system with a system that is not fully integrated. So I think learning from that, we decided, and I was really blessed to be part of the EHR team when we started, because it was our late uh chancellor's vision to have all these hospitals on one platform. And so I was part of that journey and we went to different countries around the world, and we saw, you know, the top EHRs around the world. That's when we realized that we need to get a fully integrated electronic health record system. You know, a Meditech Expanse of a vendor was just saying that we are the only hospital in the sub-Saharan Africa that has integrated it fully with many integrations. And when I say many integrations, you have Shah. Yep. You have all the biometric, you know, uh corporates. So we have a lot of integrations. But I when when it comes to the clinical, yeah, we are fully integrated. And also not clinical, but look at the finance and all that. So I think we we learned our lesson with our legacy system, and we were very careful about what we wanted. We were we we actually, I think we knew what we wanted, and I like, and I think that was very important. And you led that transformation. You're not mentioning, but you led that transformation of being a woman leading transformation. Exactly. So it's a good yeah. Yeah, I think that was it was a really I was I was really grateful that I was given that opportunity and chance, you know, by the leadership. And that that is where I I started my growth. I think I I really I I was passionate about this project. You still are. And I was yeah, I worked on this project since 2010.

Going Live With A Command Center

Stella Gichuhi 15:16

Wow.

Uzma Qureishi 15:16

Yeah. And when did you go live? 2022. Oh wow, 12 years. 12 years. And I think this time why our implementation was so successful is because, you know, I remember because of COVID, we didn't have support from the outside world because there was no local benchmark. We were the first hospital in Afri in East Africa. Wow. And so they couldn't come. And I remember the day we went live, I created we created this command center, and I was told to, I remember I was given a blank canvas and said, we need to do this command center. And I thought, okay, where am I going to start?

Stella Gichuhi 15:46

Right? Yeah.

Uzma Qureishi 15:46

And we had 157 people in that command center. We had every different professionals from different cadres. We had physicians, yeah, we had pharmacists, we had billars, we had stock inventory, we had nurses, and I loved it. Like I still remember when I looked, looked at the command center, and I remember looking at it and saying, oh my God, we did it. I think because we when we started this implementation, yeah, we had it from we it was not just the leadership making the calls. We had the stakeholders engaged from the ground. From the onset. Yeah, from the onset. And it did not matter what your position was, everybody had a voice. They mattered. They mattered. And I think that that was me. I used to go down on ground and be like, okay, even somebody like Medical Records, who would just, their job was just to pick up the file, run to the ward, give it to the doctor, and come back. But I but they're important.

Stella Gichuhi 16:41

No, they're yeah. So so it's the people factor again that we keep stressing on people. People are at the center of every transformation.

Uzma Qureishi 16:48

People are the that that's why I keep saying that any implementation you do, any technology that you bring into your organization, people are at the back. Yeah. So it should be people centered. And if you don't, if you don't bring your stakeholders in, you don't bring people in, nobody you know that implementation will not be successful. And I've seen that in very many other hospitals. That you don't bring people, you just come there and say, This is what you're going to implement, this is what we have.

Stella Gichuhi 17:17

And it and it blows up in their face. Yeah. So it's it took Agacan University Hospital 12 years to implement one of the best integrations in this part of the world. Integration is sounds easy, but based on your experience, 12 years you've transformed a whole system with Agacan. You're being forced to integrate with a system that does not have the best PR, right? What lessons have you identified that you'd like to apply to this integration journey? No, and not just Shah, I'm just I'm just being cheeky here. Yeah. But we're talking about Shah. What would you say, guys, don't even go down this path because it will blow up in your faces?

Uzma Qureishi 17:57

So I think the first thing is you need to the the requirements, the the gaps. What are the gaps? What are the requirements? Um stakeholders. So whether you you want to implement it with the private sector, each private hospital has different processes. Yeah. It had it has different EHR systems. We're the only one who's got a fully integrated one. Okay. But there are other hospitals that also have, you know, their hymns, their hospital systems. So you need to know it's not just black and white. No. It's not that, you know what, one integration is going to work for all.

Stella Gichuhi 18:29

Okay.

Uzma Qureishi 18:29

So that needs to be looked into.

Stella Gichuhi 18:32

And capacity. So going back to the people factor, I found that 2012 project management, NHS. Then to me, it was very straightforward. But now when I look back, I think to myself, wow, you need you do need subject matter experts who come in from health, right? Project professionals, implementation professionals, testing professionals. Do we have that capacity in country? Or do we do we need to champion more health tech focused resources?

Uzma Qureishi 19:06

I feel like it needs to be championed. We need to be more, we need to go out there and talk about this because I feel like when we went live with EHR, none of us knew this. Yeah. And when Meditech Expanse gave us the project plan, I still remember the requirements, they said, okay, so which doctors are going to be part of this project implementation? Everybody was like, doctor? Doctor? Really? A physician? A consultant? A surgeon? You need a surgeon to be part of the build. Yes. It's a mandatory requirement. And that was change

Clinicians Build Better Digital Workflows

Uzma Qureishi 19:41

management.

Stella Gichuhi 19:42

So for them, it was this is purely tech. You don't need the idea.

Uzma Qureishi 19:46

Yes, and this is what we were trying to. This is what I always say that EHR is not an IT project. No. It's a people's project. It is the organizational, it's the organization's project. Everyone needs to be there. So Stella, I love your question and your point on this because, you know, I love the fact that I love this conversation because I'm talking to somebody who's read the book. Okay. And you know the background of it. So when they came, we had the experts from pharmacy. Right. So the pharmacists did the build. Yeah. Even though our teams were like, you know, the joke is that, you know, at work they call me Dactari, and I'm just like, I'm not a doctor. And they're like, yeah, but it was my, you know, so much clinical knowledge, you know. And I Oh, you're a subject matter expert. Yes. And I had to learn that. We had to do order sets, and I had to learn what a pancreatitis actually have. Like, okay, these other radiology tests need to do, these are the labs. What are order sets? So order sets are, so we went with this company called Elsevier. Yeah. And order sets are, for example, you know, you come and you say, I have a pain, and you put it into the system. And what we'll do is the system is smart enough to say if you think it's a pancreatitis, or you think it could be appendicitis, we have an order set for it. So you click on it and you don't have to go there now and say you need to do these tests. All the tests are already embedded into it. So the doctor just goes and clicks on that order set. But who created these order sets? It had to be our physicians, our surgeons sitting with us. So our surgeons had to sit there. And I still remember he was a really good friend of mine, uh, Dr. Curran, and we were sitting and I was doing the autoset with him for surgery, and I learnt a lot, I remember. And and he was literally sitting there and ticking, you know. And so and so you would never think of a surgeon, uh he's a he's a hepatobillary surgeon, and you would never think of a surgeon actually sitting down with you. That was unknown. Uh huh.

Stella Gichuhi 21:41

But but it has to be done because they're the subject matter expert. And it's the patient that they're looking after at the end of the day who will benefit from that conversation. What are the laws that govern patient patient care, but now for children, children and adolescents? That's the reason I'm asking this. Or is it just cut a coup? You d it's the same across board.

Uzma Qureishi 22:02

So we are accredited by JCI, Joint Commission International. Okay. Accreditation is from the United States. Right. We just got a gold accreditation. We've had it. We've this is a third accreditation that we've got. It comes every four years. Congratulations. Thank you. And JCIA is very, very strict. It has chapters. So when AI came out, this is the first time JCIA had a chapter for us called HCT. Okay. And it was all about how are you going to adopt AI? What are the securities you're putting in place, you know, about teleradiology. So the same way they have a chapter for also a pediatric, adolescence, mental health, you know, all that.

Stella Gichuhi 22:44

So you we we follow you're so passionate about this, and I love it. I'm like, oh, I should have stayed in my NHS days a bit longer, but God always has other plans. Have you had other hospitals in the region call you up and say, Uzma and her team know what they're doing, we need this.

Uzma Qureishi 23:00

Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's so yes, locally as well. You know, um, the healthcare industry, especially now, and I'm I'm actually really thankful to, you know, DXNova and CI 100, they've actually got these IT professionals to come together. Okay. Yeah. And I think because of that, we are talking to one another, we're learning from one another. You know, of course, we're the only hospital right now that implemented this. So they call and be like, How did you do it? And you know, the joke is like always like, okay, did you guys did you did you implement it? Is it okay? Is this vendor good? You know, should we go for it? So we do that. And I think the IT industry is really small here, but I think even going outside. Yeah, I didn't know this, but you know, I was I one of our I'm when I when I'd gone for this trip to see different hospitals around the world, we'd gone to Turkey. And, you know, we had met, we'd gone to different hospitals and we'd met the leadership. And one of the leaders messaged me when I got the DXNova and and messaged me and said, Wow, you did it, you know. Yeah, and was it easy? What were the challenges? Usma, no way, you actually did. And I thought just, oh my god, it's coming from somebody who has implemented an EHR and has read our story and you know the what we did. And so for her to ask me what were the challenges, yeah, it just made me feel really happy, like with six people.

Stella Gichuhi 24:28

Oh, you're being humble. She's a boss. She's a boss, everybody. Now, a few things before we

Mentorship And Women Owning Their Seat

Stella Gichuhi 24:36

wrap up. Yeah, you again, you're very passionate. Um, do you mentor? Do you offer internships for any young or somebody of my age listening to this podcast? How does one get into health tech? How should they get into health tech?

Uzma Qureishi 24:51

I love that question. Thank you. I love mentorship. Yeah, I know. Um, our Khan University Hospital has got a really huge mentorship program because they saw the benefit and the value for not just us but also the interns. Yeah. So, yes, we do. We have a mentorship program where so there are different types. So we have university students coming from out of out of the country. They come to learn our EHR, you know, and see well, how did we implement what are the lessons that they need to learn? Yeah. Because I think that I feel like sometimes Africa is always just put on the side, but they need to know that, you know what, after implementing the EHR, I was really proud to say, you know what, as a Kenyan, we did this, you know. And and so we have that, and then we have local universities that we have also we work with. Okay. And they uh a lot with like the IT universities. So we have every quarter we have their interns coming in. And it's really nice because you know, the leadership of their teachers or professors come and sit with us, and we actually now go through their rating and say, you know, what did you think about him? And so we do that. Number three, we have internships. You can come and apply in health tech. And I always tell my interns that you know what, it's a symbiotic relationship. You learn from us, and we also learn from you. And I feel like you shouldn't disregard that. They also come with something. Like I remember one of my interns came who now became a permanent employee. He created an amazing dashboard for us when it came to maternity and vaccinations. And so, you see, when you give them that access, you give them the the resources, you give them the knowledge because you're teaching them as well, right? And I think that that will really help our our younger generation. And again, women, I just feel like women, please don't fear coming into, you know, even the in our hands. Yeah, yeah.

Stella Gichuhi 26:53

It's it's it's uh we were having this conversation earlier, and it's like take, grab, grab, grab the ball by its horns and and don't and don't look back. And it sounds like that's what you've done with your life, and you and you don't look back. So yeah, I've done it. You went, you did it, you conquered, you're still conquering.

Uzma Qureishi 27:08

Yeah, yeah. And 90% of the staff in my team are women. Exactly. I I I I just feel like we need to be appreciated. Actually, we we don't we don't even need anybody to appreciate us. We need to appreciate ourselves, and I feel like women don't understand that. They've you know they always say it's such a male-dominated field. It will always be male-dominated. It always will be, but you know what? I always say, get in the room, take your seat, yeah, and own it. Yeah, and no one can take that seat from you. No one. Show up, yeah. Show up. Yeah, you know, and I think that that's changing. I love it. I can see a lot of women coming out.

Stella Gichuhi 27:44

Okay.

Uzma Qureishi 27:45

And I and also again, you know, when this DXNova uh finalist when I a lot of people messaged me on LinkedIn saying that we read your story, you know, and we want to be like you. Was it difficult being a mother and being a wife? And and so, Stella, I just feel like if you want to succeed as a woman, yeah, your support system needs to be very strong. So your husband, you know, your family, yeah, they really need to support you. If you don't have that support, then I I I've seen it, it can be difficult. And that we have God as well. And God is for me, for me, I would have not done. I feel like my success and everything, it's it's God. There were miracles that He He showed me and during honestly, there were times when I would sit there in the command center and cry. And we had a really small space, I made a space in the command center, and it was a praying corner. So, regardless of who you are, whatever religion you are, we used to pray. And I felt like, you know what? Can you imagine how many times whoever it is is calling out their God in this certain room, this project is definitely going to be successful. And it was successful, and honestly, I I feel like without God, I wouldn't have been here. Amen.

Stella Gichuhi 29:03

I love that. Well, listeners, you heard it here first. God at the center of every tech transformation. And I've loved this interview with you, Usma. Thank you, Stella. Thank you for championing patient care, patient rights, be it an elderly patient, a child, anybody, they will always know that Usma has their heart in front of her mind.

Uzma Qureishi 29:27

Yeah.

Stella Gichuhi 29:27

But she does this because it's it creates impact. Thank you so much, Usma.

Uzma Qureishi 29:31

I do, Stella, and I just feel like the one last thing I want to say is that, you know, as a mother, you go through mum guilt. And my my son and my daughter, I just always feel that. But you know, when I look back, I remember my husband telling me once when I when we were implementing the EHR, and I didn't come home for four days, and he looked at me and he said, Usma, you know what, one day the kids are gonna look up and say, That is my mummy. You know, that's my mama.

Rural Ultrasound That Saved Mothers

Uzma Qureishi 29:55

There was one project that I did at the Radiological Society of North America when I went to present, and it was about women and mothers. Phillips came with a prototype and told us that we have this small prototype. Mothers don't even, they don't even know what ultrasound is when they're pregnant. No. So in the rural areas, and WHO says that you have to do at least one ultrasound. So they gave us a small VC, it was a prototype, and I remember our chair late Dr. Van Eyck said, go to rural areas and try to see how you can do this. Every hospital failed, but we made sure that we did it. And what we did was we had a tablet, had the prototype, and we had a 3G modem. And they had USMA, please.

Stella Gichuhi 30:38

And they had you, Stella, yourself.

Uzma Qureishi 30:42

Thank you. And we implemented this with the help of the clinicians, yeah, our radiologists, they trained the sonographers. Oh because you can't have a radiologist sitting in a rural area, then it's not gonna happen. Oh, okay. So they trained the sonographers. Costs, okay, right? Of course, cost is the biggest, and of course, even like how many of them are here, right? So that we said, okay, you know, train the sonographers. And within 25 minutes, we ensured that lossless images went from the rural area, whatever was being scanned, to our radiologist sitting in the hospital. They reported that and sent it back. And there were sentinel events that we we we actually saved. So there was like, you know, the code around the neck, just telling a patient that you're having twins, you know. And they didn't know what this. Of course, there was a tab, like people were like, Don't touch my stomach, what is this? Is it gonna hurt me? Of course. And then, as you say, um, I you know, I don't talk much about it, but then I let it go. I was like, okay, and after that, you know, uh, I got an opportunity to to submit my paper, our paper to Radiological Society of North America. And me and my co-lead, we went to Chicago and Stella, I was six months pregnant, and I had a really I had a lot of complications. Oh. And I had to do an ultrasound every two days. And in my head, I'm thinking to myself, I have to go and present this because I was the only uh hospital from East Africa presenting on that platform.

Stella Gichuhi 32:13

So you were flying the flag for your family, for yourself, for the hospital, for the country, for the region.

Uzma Qureishi 32:18

I put Africa on the map. And my husband was like, Go, you're gonna be fine. And my doctor, you know, I still remember Dr. Sequarak just kept saying, Usma, you can do it. You know, and I'm thinking to myself, oh my god, with all these complications, but there was a reason. So I was there heavily pregnant, and I presented this, and I remember I was on the same table, like Mayo Clinic, Harvard University, and they all looked at us and they said, Wow, is this what you did in Africa? And we're like, Yes, you know. And from there, the the the clinical team, they took it up and it moved it forward, and they went out and did this, where Phillips and Bill Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave a grant, and now it's become massive, you know? And because of this small project we started, going forward, it the clinicians have also helped the Ministry of Health create guidelines for POCUS, which is point of ultrasound uh for gynecology, you know. The power of a mustard seeds look small. Just a small, and honestly, it was so tiny, we didn't think. And today they're running it, and they're, you know, they're they've done there's Mimbayango and Aimama, and they're just that's where it started. Yeah, so it started from a small little project that was VSIq, and we were told to just go and try it out. Yeah, and that prototype, VSQ, that Phillips gave us to try actually went into production. And it changed lives, saved babies, saved mothers, and it's impacted. It's impacted. So, you know, I I I may not be on the bedside, I may not be, I'm not a clinician, I don't do surgeries, but you know, I know that whatever work we do, yeah, it's saving a life. So when I come home, Stella, I just feel like some sort of com contentment that I don't have my mom and dad with me right now, they're my angels, but I know that you know, I feel like I I wish I could save my mom, she had cancer. Yeah. But you know what? When I do these small things, I feel like you know what, today I feel so nice. I did this alert system where I've created this alert or I did this, it saved a life.

Stella Gichuhi 34:20

The hero without scrubs, changing lives. Oh my god. We should have an episode two looking at the future of patient care.

Uzma Qureishi 34:28

Yeah, yeah, we'll have that. That'll be very interesting.

Stella Gichuhi 34:31

Yeah, yeah, once all these integrations are done. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Last, last words. Any last, last words?

Final Advice And Closing

Uzma Qureishi 34:43

I just want to say that, you know, um, to the women out there, take your seat, yeah, own it. Yeah, and in healthcare, every implementation we do, every every process flow we make, yeah, there's a human life behind it. Yeah. So when we succeed, we there's just a a sense of satisfaction that we get, that it's just you can't explain it.