Writing about the Challenges of Health Informatics is not new to me. I actually made a presentation about it in my Public Health Nutrition Seminar class last semester so this wouldn't be the first time that I heard about it. An "obstacle course" would be a perfect description for it in the Philippines (and other developing countries) as there are series of difficulties and barriers which are needed to be addressed before we truly see its impact to the healthcare system.
Health Informatics changed the course of healthcare since it has emerged but the development it brings still hasn’t been seen in developing countries due to various barriers in its implementation, compared to first-world countries where there is available technology infrastructure, and fast networks which are absent in developing countries. According to (Marcelo, Adejumo, & Luna, 2011), barriers shared by the developing countries in the Latin America, Africa and Asia regions are low priority on health informatics, privatization of systems and limited open source software, unstable electric power supply, expensive network because of geographical constraints such as archipelagos, varying languages and dialects in a single country, and limited investments. Because of the absence of enabling technology environment, human resources cannot be developed and the innovations on health informatics would lag in development. The challenges to Health Informatics were summarized in six categories: limited infrastructures and resources, development of health IT agendas, regional integration, lack of trained workforce, lack of use of common interoperability standards, and ethical, logical and social issues (Luna, et al., 2014). There are efforts to improve the situation of Health Informatics in the country such as continuous increase of electricity coverage and Filipino internet users (World Bank Group, 2017). Although, there are still limitations with this as both utilities are not reliable due to power interruptions, slow internet connection, and expensive utility bills. On the other hand, health IT agendas are continuously developing through the guidance of the eHealth Bill and National Telehealth Service Program. There are projects that are being rolled out across the country such as Community Health Information Tracking System (CHITS), RxBox, Philhealth, etc. Regional Integration is executed through Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN), an organization dedicated to building capacity for Asian countries to assert the role of ICT in Health. As for the ethical, logical and social issues, the Data Privacy Act of 2012 or RA 10173 was enacted to protect the privacy of people especially on transactions using ICT.
To address the issues in developing countries, three key strategies are suggested by (Marcelo, Adejumo, & Luna, 2011) to develop health informatics in this setting: partnerships, standards and inter-operability, and promotion of use of mHealth. Inter-institutional partnerships with first world countries on training and research would fast-track the development as they already have the fundamentals on developing the system. Partnerships to collaborate on software development using Free and Open Source Software and partnerships through social networking could also be established to prevent expensive licensing fees, and to encourage participation and timely collection of information. Learning from the mistakes of developed countries during their formative stage, standards and inter-operability should be discussed by stakeholders to strengthen potential for success. This could help in reducing the cost of implementation and in disseminating consistent health information systems even at a national scale. Lastly, because of the successful market of mobile phones in developing countries such that of Africa and Asia, it may be used as access points for delivering and documenting health services in challenging geographical areas. Since there are a lot of mobile phone users and it is easy to learn and use, promotion of mHealth would be easier to spread out. With the use of these cost-effective strategies, capacity for health informatics in developing countries could be developed, and eventually help improve the healthcare system through increasing access of quality healthcare, enhance the efficiency of work in health institutions, aid in clinical trials and researches, and so on.
Comments