EHEALTH STRATEGIES AND APPLICATIONS

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E-HEALTH STRATEGIES AND APPLICATIONS

• WSIS ACCARA E-HEALTH PRESENTATION
• 30 JANUARY, 2005
• DR. LAWRENCE KWEKU YAMUAH
• AHRI/ALERT, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• ATAC IV MEMBER
• yamuahlk_at_yahoo.co.uk

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OVERVIEW

• BACKGROUND DEFINITIONS
• E-HEALTH APPLICATION IN HEALTHCARE DELIVERY
• CHALLENGES IN E-HEALTH
• E-HEALTH STRATEGIES
• ACTION PLANS
• DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

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BACKGROUND DEFINITION (1)

• E-HEALTH is defined as
• Application of the Internet and other related
  technologies in the healthcare industry to
  improve the
• access, efficiency, effectiveness and quality of
  clinical and business processes utilized by
  healthcare organizations, practitioners, patients
  and consumers to -
• Improve the health status of patients.
• E-Health Healths version of e-commerce thus
  conducting health business electronically
• E-Health ICT in Health Sector

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ROLE OF ICT IN HEALTH (1)

• ICTs provide opportunities for individuals,
  medical professionals and healthcare providers to
  
• obtain information,
• communicate with professionals,
• deliver first-line support especially where
  distance is a critical factor and
• promote preventive medicine programmes.
• Therefore, LDC especially in Africa can benefit
  from using ICTs to improve healthcare.

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APPLICATION OF ICT IN HEALTH (2)

• At Referral Hospitals/Regional Hospitals/
  District/Sub-district/ Health Centres delivery
  units, ICT enable
• more effective planning, decision-making and
  monitoring
• improved shared service operations
• greater access to more reliable H P data
• more effective resource management

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APPLICATION OF ICT IN HEALTH (3)

• At service providers level, ICT can enable
• efficient movement of necessary data to
  clinicians
• integration of clinical information across the
  health system
• consistent and shared views of patient data
• matching of resources to activity levels through
  relevant up-to-date information
• reliable and timely evidence-based
  decision-making

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APPLICATION OF ICT IN HEALTH (4)

• Particular value for patients from improved
  information systems include
• development use of electronic patient records
  leading to
• electronic shareable health record
• multi-media decision support systems
• remote monitoring
• updating patient notes using wireless Personal
  Digital Assistants (PDA)

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APPLICATION OF ICT IN HEALTH (5)

• Secretary General of UNECA Bamako 2000
  Conference of the AISI stated that
• Africa is at an early stage of using ICT to
  improve the delivery of health care.
• Investment in ICT in the HS could complement
  basic health services through
• enhancement of administration,
• Access to information and decision-support
  systems for curative and preventive health and
• improved distribution of medical supplies.

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PLANNING AHEAD

• Peter Drucker (1994, p62) stated that
• Developing Countries can no longer expect to
  base their development on their comparative
  labour advantage. The competitive advantage that
  now counts is the application of knowledge.
• Challenges need to be identified and addressed

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E-HEALTH CHALLENGES (1)

• 5 main areas of e-health challenges
• Information - Inaccurate and Incomplete
• Human Resources - (Inadequate or Brain Drained)
• Infrastructure
• Quality and Security of data and legal issues
• Financial and sustainability issues

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E-HEALTH CHALLENGES (2)

• Health sector and e-health is facing great
  challenges in
• Rising cost
• Growing demands from consumers - patients,
  citizens
• Demographic changes, ageing population, diseases
  etc
• Fundamental change to the way healthcare is
  delivered
• Keeping up with rapid advance of technology
• Determining quality and effects of e-health
  applications
• Developing credible information sources on
  research tools and findings.

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E-HEALTH CHALLENGES (3)

• Creating ICT technologists and technicians in
  health sector at all levels
• Attitudes about use of ICT/e-health technologies
• Time - Mans greatest enemy
• Achieving consensus
• Lack of investment in technology in healthcare
  sector
• Lack of Stakeholder participation
• Solutions are needed to solve these challenges.
• How can e-health help to meet health sector
  challenges?

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Africas E-Health Vision Strategies

• VISION
• Africas e-health vision is to ensure the
  delivery of the right information about the right
  individual to the right person at the right place
  at the right time to enhance health outcomes and
  improve system efficiency.

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Africas E-Health Vision Strategies

• STRATEGY
• E-health is about modernizing health system
  methods and technologies to increase the quality,
  safety, timeliness, and efficiency of health
  service to all Africans. The Strategy, therefore
  is to deal with e-health as a long term project
  requiring clarity, ownership of direction, strong
  collaboration and accountability among all key
  stakeholders, and attention to specific
  achievable deliverables.

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E-HEALTH STRATEGIES (1)

• Strategies (1)
• Strong leadership required to solve conflicts
  between and within organizations.
• Skill development and adoption of new practices
• Need to create ICT Portals in order to
• Improve patient-provider communication
• Contain cost
• Provide reliable health information
• Reduce medical errors
• Enhance efficiency access, utilization and
  collaboration

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E-HEALTH STRATEGIES (2)

• Strategies (2)
• E-Awareness/Training
• Build ICT Awareness/Skills on the potentials of
  ICTs for E-Health in the sector through
  introduction of ICT curriculum in all health
  training institutions including medical and
  research institutions, nurses training
  institutions, medical technologists schools and
  retraining of already qualified medical
  practitioners.
• Budgets for Sustainability
• Ensure integration of ICT in all budgetary
  processes and approach to health management to
  ensure sustainability

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E-HEALTH STRATEGY (3)

• Strategies (3)
• Internet Protocol (IP)
• Harnessing the potentials of IP by developing
  policies for sharing of patient medical
  information through the use of ICT while taking
  into consideration issues of trust,
  confidentiality and security of patient
  information and ensuring its timely delivery as
  it affects life or death situation of the
  individual.
• E-Environment
• Promoting the establishment of favourable legal
  and policy environment for e-Health.

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E-HEALTH ACTION PLANS (1)

• Action Plans (1)
• Set up an ICT Task Force
• Carry Out survey of ICT facilities usage in HS
• Set up pilot ICT driven health projects to
  demonstrate effectiveness of ICT
• Design projects that build synergies with other
  health sectors to achieve PEAP MDG objectives.
• Identify ICT training requirements
• Establish ICT qualifications into the medical
  practitioners qualification criteria.

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E-HEALTH ACTION PLANS (2)

• Action Plans (2)
• Develop and promote projects to establish ICT
  access points at different levels of health
  delivery.
• Review the existing policies for sharing of
  medical information identify gaps on unique
  needs.
• Tune existing ICT applications in health to fully
  address gender and disability issues.
• In collaboration with women organisations and
  disabled groups, develop ICT projects that
  specifically address women and disability issues.

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E-HEALTH ACTION PLANS (3)

• Action Plans (3)
• Create an e-health vision and strategy designed
  for broader and ongoing consultation.
• Identify targeted investments in key initiative
  areas and collaborate with.
• Develop funding strategies to support e-health
  initiatives
• Develop a governance framework to co-ordinate and
  integrate e-health strategies.
• Create an e-health office that will ensure
  co-ordination, integration and monitor delivery
  of all e-health initiatives

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E-Health Strategies DISCUSSION

• Discussion (1)
• The health sector is an information intensive
  sector
• Improvements in healthcare can occur only if
  e-health technologies are applied as enabling
  tools for re-organization and supported by the
  necessary skills
• Re-organization and reforms needed
• Many achievements to date in research and
  development
• Still needed - standardization and
  interoperability
• Evaluate the appropriateness of existing ICT
  applications in the sector based on impact and
  effectiveness on the delivery of health services.
  

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E-Health Strategies DISCUSSION

• Discussion (2) Security Threats
• Identification is one of the BIG Challenges in
  e-health
• Knowing who you are dealing with remains a major
  concern for e-health services on the Internet.
• On the Internet, nobody knows if youre a dog
• but in e-health, it is important to Know if you
  are dealing with a dog. (Alexander NTOKO)
• Knowing that the person behind the computer (or
  IT equipment) is a real doctor and/or an
  authorized medical personnel.

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E-Health Strategies DISCUSSION

• Discussion (3) Security Threats
• Being sure of the source/origin of the medical
  information transmitted via the Internet
• Making sure that medical records can only be
  modified by authorized personnel.
• Confidentiality
• Information accessed only by those authorized.
• Access Control/Authorization
• Originator cannot deny origin.

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IMPORTANCE OF CONFERENCE (16)

• To progress from
• Technology development to Solution phase
• where e-health system and services are the
  enabling tools to the reforms and
  re-organisations
• by-
• exchanging experiences
• looking at benefits of e-health applications
• reinforcing the strategies deploying e-health as
  solutions to meet the health sector challenges

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E-AFRICA 2005 AND BEYOND

• Conference seen as a milestone of the e-Africa
  2005 effort towards the Information society for
  All, where
• Health sector enjoys the benefits of the e-health
  tools and the productivity gains it generates
• African citizens will have better services and
  better value for money
• The ICT sector enjoys the sustainable market
  development in relevant support tools and
  services.

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E-HEALTH THE BIG QUESTION

• The Wealth of a Nation is the health of its
  people
• Question
• Has Africa made enough effort in examining ways
  and means of providing the infrastructure to
  connect the health community and providing access
  to information relevant to the health needs of
  the region

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E-HEALTH STR CONCLUSION

• Conclusion
• E-health (ICTs) present many potential benefits
  and challenges thus, potential for explosive
  growth
• To realize the benefits, the challenges mentioned
  must be overcome
• Human resource development related to ICT in
  health is a huge area that is critical to the
  successful application of ICT in the sector.
• Skills in information systems design and
  implementation are critical to successful
  application of ICT in the sector.

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E-HEALTH STR CONCLUSION

• Conclusion
• Progress is being made, but before e-health can
  emerge there must be improved reliability and
  robustness.
• If e-health is to flourish in Africa, it needs to
  be staged and nurtured. We need to build on our
  own local skills and infrastructure, based on
  local demand.
• The careful selection of solutions is important -
  we should only take the best from elsewhere.
  There are many initiatives, and only a few will
  survive.
• Africa should ensure that e-health becomes an
  integral part of health organizations - bricks
  and clicks.
• Build competencies for e-health find retain
  skilled pp

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E-HEALTH TAKE HOME MESSAGES

• E-health enhances access to information
  resources, empowerment of patients to make
  informed healthcare decisions, and improved
  quality, value patient satisfaction.
• Users want credible reliable information,
  convenience, accessibility, and the assurance of
  privacy.
• Leadership must demonstrate our commitment to the
  implementation of e-health and promote both
  concept and practical application through
  participation, allocation of resources and open
  communication.

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E-HEALTH TAKE HOME MESSAGE

• Vision must be translated into a strategy which
  incorporates action, evaluation, and
  accountability
• More people (than 150,000 in Tsunami disaster)
  die each day in Africa but continent receives
  less than 1/100th of aid provided for the
  disaster
• Help Africans to LIVE DECENTLY not to DIE
  GRACEFULLY
• Poverty and Health are linked somehow

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E-HEALTH TAKE HOME MESSAGE

• Main Message
• To meet the goals of poverty eradication
  programmes of many African countries as well as
  the millenium development goals (MDG), our
  socio-economic thinking must tag along with the
  improvement in the health sector with the
  e-health/ICT tools.

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• THANK YOU !
• UNECA (DSID)
• Aida Opoku-Mensah
• Makane Faye
• Kidist Beleyani

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• THANK YOU !
• ALL !!!