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HIFA2015 is a campaign and knowledge network with more than 4000 members representing 1800 organisations in 157 countries worldwide. Members include health workers, publishers, librarians, information technologists, researchers, social scientists, journalists, policy-makers and others – all working together towards the HIFA2015 goal.

HIFA2015 contributes to the broader goal of the Global Health Workforce Alliance: ‘All people everywhere will have access to a skilled, motivated and supported health worker, within a robust health system’

Performing clinical trials in resource-constrained settings requires an affordable and easy to use data management system that is compliant with applicable standards. It is a bold step to adopt a web-based system in a large multi-site clinical trial in an area with challenging communication infrastructure. The process has been successful but not without its challenges. In this presentation, we look at the experience in setting up and use of OpenClinica in Africa with a case study on a large multi-site clinical trial in East Africa that has adopted OpenClinica. The presentation describes the difficulties faced, approaches taken to counter the challenges and best practices adopted. We also propose additional functionality that we believe would make the system more useful in such settings.