They hold the first Forum for a National eHealth Strategy
EHealth is defined as the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the wide range of aspects that affect health care, from diagnosis to patient follow-up, through the management of the organizations involved in healthcare. this activities. This practice, assumed with public policies in several countries for about three years, improves the quality of the service and guarantees the security and confidentiality of the information.
In order to promote the country's adoption of the eHealth vision as a high priority axis in the national agenda, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO / WHO), the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) and the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) on Thursday celebrated April 19 the First Forum for a National eHealth Strategy, with the participation of representatives of the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate of the Republic, the World Bank (WB), the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (INDOTEL ), the Dominican Association of Schools and Faculties of Medicine (ADOFEM), the Dominican Medical College (CMD), associations and societies specialized in health.
More than 30 representatives of key actors of the sector integrated work groups to elaborate the first Strategic Plan in eHealth for the country, with impact on State policies, and with the ability to conceive and implement eHealth services equipped with infrastructures for services and of the appropriate legal framework.
"The INTEC opens this forum as a work space to contribute to the advancement of health information systems in the Dominican Republic, both technical-scientific as the Virtual Health Library, we manage, as prevention for citizenship", said Julio Sánchez Maríñez, vice-rector of Research and Liaison of INTEC during the opening of the event.
The proposal, with its corresponding plan of action, coincides with the launch of the General Health Information System (SIGS) of the Ministry of Public Health through the portal salud.gob.do it offers free access to timely information on nine critical areas of the Dominican health system.
"This system allows both institutions and users to interconnect systems; to families it allows them to fill out their family health card online, which is just a first step in the cultural change that we must dare to close the digital divide, "explained Tirsis Quezada, vice minister of Strategic Institutional Development of the MSP, who gave opening to the event.
David Novillo, advisor in Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning of PAHO / WHO, with experience in Latin America, indicated that the key to developing an eHealth strategy is to create policies, articulate an intersectoral network, train human resources and optimize resources. "In health there are no barriers. Providing information on health is prevention. Furthermore, the fact that a patient's history can be shared in the network and that the latter has access to it, improves the quality of life of the citizen. EHealth requires a lot of investment in technology, but it is not the only thing. It requires clear legal frameworks, training and strategy in social networks ".
Carol Hullin, a senior consultant at the World Bank (WB) and a speaker at the forum, said that "health should enter the digital age." "A strategy in eHealth must go hand in hand with e-Government, integrate the industry and local sectors," he said during his presentation on the health informatics mission in health. "In this aspect academies and health informatics associations can contribute a lot and work on the intellectual property issue of the results generated by their research."
The experts agreed that there is an urgent need to train health professionals capable of adopting what is required by connectivity and the transformation of the health system.
For this, it will be essential to develop a culture and vision of the use of ICT among professionals in the health sector and recipients of services, so that they are accustomed to using ICTs in their daily work in a cost-effective manner.
The activity was headed by Laura Ramírez, on behalf of PAHO / WHO, Deputy Minister Quezada, Vice-Chancellor Sánchez Maríñez, Raymundo Jiménez, Dean of the Health Sciences Area of INTEC, Fernando Santamaría, deputy deputy of the area and Lucero Arboleda, Director of the University Library, through which the Virtual Health Library of the country is managed (BVSRD).
Participants were Elizabeth Gómez, Director of Knowledge Management of the MSP, Amparo Arango, of INDOTEL, Heldy Vásquez, President of ADOFEM and Drs. Luis René Canaán, Fernando Rojas, Rafael Schiffino, Rafael Bello, among other prominent personalities in the field of health .
Advantages of eHealth
For patients Access to ICTs represents benefits associated with the availability of information about their health conditions, through resources such as digital medical records, which facilitate decision-making regardless of where they are being assisted. They also give you the opportunity to access information designed for patients. It also provides alternative diagnosis and therapy of the environment of telemedicine.
For health professionals, eHealth is related to an improvement in access to relevant information, through the availability of scientific journals, electronic publications and evidence-based medicine (MBE), among other resources; with training and permanent updating of human resources through videoconferences and virtual campuses; with global access to personal medical data through digital medical records; with the use of telemedicine for different types of diagnosis and treatments; and with the electronic prescription assisted.