How a Nairobi Hospital Can Contact-Trace Every Ward Visitor in Five Minutes, as Kenya Counts Down to Ebola-Free

Kenya is counting down to being declared Ebola-free. The last patient left hospital on 11 November, and once 42 clear days pass, the Ministry of Health expects the declaration on 23 December.

The twist is who caught it. Of Kenya’s nine cases, four were family members of the first patient, a man who died in a Nairobi hospital after travelling home from the Democratic Republic of Congo; four more were health workers who cared for him before anyone suspected Ebola. The disease moved through the people at his bedside, and relatives at a bedside arrive through the hospital gate as visitors.

Tracing them starts with one question: who visited that ward in the last 21 days, and who else was in the building at the same time? With a paper visitor book, the answer means pages of handwriting, guessed phone numbers and days of calls.

One question, one list

A hospital on GuestPass asks the question in plain words: “Contact trace visitors for Ward 3 Bed 12 for the last 21 days.” GuestPass Intelligence returns every visit to that bed, with each visitor’s phone number, ID and times in and out, then everyone else who was on site at the same time, as a table the tracing team downloads. The assistant answers in about six seconds on average; the full list is with the tracers well inside five minutes.

The same records shape the visits themselves. The hospital sets a limit of visitors per bed, the gate texts the patient when someone arrives, and every visitor is counted out when visiting hours end.

The result is a hospital that knows who visited every bed and reaches each of them within minutes.