Designing an Electronic Tool for Rehab Referral in Uganda TBI Care (2026-2027)

Background

Access to rehabilitation services remains a critical and often overlooked component of health systems in low- and middle-income countries. In Uganda, people with disabilities and chronic health conditions frequently face barriers to necessary rehabilitation referrals after hospitalization, including fragmented care pathways, limited specialist availability and paper-based systems that make coordination difficult across facilities. These challenges contribute to missed referrals, delays in care, inequities in access and poorer long-term outcomes.

At the same time, Uganda has seen rapid growth in digital health initiatives and mobile health infrastructure. Thoughtfully designed electronic referral tools — co-created with clinicians, patients and health system leaders — offer the potential to strengthen referral pathways, improve continuity of care and expand access to rehabilitation services, particularly in rural and under-resourced settings.

Project Description

This project brings together students and faculty from rehabilitation fields, global health, data science, psychology, information science, health management, and policy to co-design an electronic interdisciplinary discharge planning tool for rehabilitation referral in partnership with Ugandan clinicians, health system leaders and community interested parties.

The team will work closely with Ugandan partners to apply past findings regarding barriers and facilitators of rehabilitation referrals to the development of an electronic interdisciplinary discharge planning tool. Using human-centered design and co-production methods, students will work alongside a team of local providers across neurosurgery, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and neuropsychology, as well as local patients, caregivers, informaticists, and IT specialists. Students will apply interested party mapping (aka stakeholder mapping), iterative design, and other co-design techniques to design, prototype and refine an electronic interdisciplinary discharge planning tool that supports post-hospital rehabilitation referral and is context-appropriate, equitable and sustainable.

In addition to technical development, the project will examine the broader ethical and policy dimensions of electronic referral systems, including data governance, accessibility, provider training and long-term implementation. The goal is not only to develop a functional tool, but also to generate evidence and design principles that can inform rehabilitation referral systems in other low-resource settings.

Anticipated Outputs

Co-designed prototype of an electronic interdisciplinary discharge planning tool to support post-hospitalization rehabilitation referral within the Ugandan health system
Documentation of referral workflows and user requirements
Design guidelines and implementation recommendations for digital rehabilitation referrals
Student-authored reports and potential conference presentations or manuscripts

Student Opportunities

Ideally, this team will include 3 graduate students and 6 undergraduates with interests in global health, disability studies, rehabilitation fields, implementation science, health management, data science and informatics, and health policy. Students will have opportunities to:

Participate in human-centered design and co-design workshops with local providers, patients, caregivers and technical experts
Contribute to prototyping, testing and refinement of digital health tools
Examine health system and policy considerations related to digital referrals
Engage in a cross-cultural, collaborative setting with fellow international students and partners

Students will gain experience working on a real-world global health challenge while developing skills in participatory research, interdisciplinary teamwork and ethical global engagement. Students will also engage with local Ugandan students as team partners for the full academic year.

Timing

Spring 2026 – Spring 2027

Summer 2026:

Foundation setting in global team partnership

Fall 2026:

Interested party mapping
Iterative design of new tool elements
Early prototyping and initial testing

Spring 2027:

Iterative testing and refinement
Evaluation
Documentation
Dissemination of findings
Development of implementation and scale-up recommendations

Crediting

Academic credit available fall and spring semesters