Frontline emergency care in rural hospitals is often delivered by clinicians with limited specialized training, who operate without timely access to structured clinical pathways or reliable systems for documentation.

Digital tools can address these gaps, supporting frontline providers with evidence-based decision support and capturing structured patient data in real time.

The OASES App is an Android application optimized for tablets, designed for use by frontline clinicians in emergency units of resource-limited hospitals. It combines clinical decision support with structured electronic data capture in a single tool.

Triage. The App includes a triage module based on the Interagency Integrated Triage Tool (IITT), enabling rapid and standardized identification of emergency, urgent, and non-urgent cases.

Clinical decision support. Four condition-specific algorithms, based on WHO guidelines, walk clinicians through patient evaluation, reassessment, and disposition for the most common acute presentations encountered in resource-limited settings:

  • Diarrhea

  • Dyspnea

  • Seizures and altered mental status

  • Other acute complaints

Electronic medical record for emergency units. The App functions as a lightweight electronic medical record adapted to the needs of emergency units, supporting structured capture of patient demographics, vital signs, malnutrition screening, past medical history, and details of the current clinical evaluation, for use in both medical care and research.

Designed for low-resource settings. The OASES App is built to operate reliably in environments with limited or intermittent connectivity:

  • Online mode: real-time synchronization of cases across multiple tablets, allowing simultaneous use by different providers within the same emergency unit.

  • Offline mode: when no network is available, cases can be exchanged between tablets via Bluetooth, ensuring continuity of care during connectivity disruptions.

Development and evaluation. The OASES App was developed through a collaboration between the School of Medicine and Surgery and the Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication of the University of Milano-Bicocca, bringing together clinical expertise in emergency care and technical expertise in software engineering.

The App has been evaluated on simulated clinical scenarios through a registered randomized crossover trial conducted at Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital in Kalongo, Uganda, in 2026.

Request access. The OASES App prototype is currently available for evaluation by clinicians, researchers, and partner institutions interested in testing it in their own settings. To request access, please contact us.