ICT vital in health innovations
By NATION REPORTER WE need to focus on developing effective information systems in coming up with innovations in the health sector, says Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Kennedy Malama.
He said adopting Information Communication Technology (ICT) based innovations in health across the world had proven to be highly beneficial in the provision of health care.
Dr Malama said this n a speech read on his behalf by the Copperbelt Provincial Health Director Alex Makupe at the official launch of the 6trategic Information Technical Working Group (SI-TWG) at Protea hotel in Ndola.
He said 6I 7:* was the first ever technical working group that focused on health informatics at Provincial level.
Government, he said, was committed to adopting cuttingedge information technologies to synthesise innovations that simplified and Tuickened the provision of cost effective public services.
“The Ministry of health is implementing the E-government agenda through executing strategies contained in the E-health strategic plan 2017-2021 based on service delivery, research and e-learning.
“We should not only concen- trate our efforts on adoption of systems and data entry but much more on utilisation of outputs such as reports, thereby emphasising data use and promoting evidence based practice and management,” he explained.
Dr Malama said operations of the SI-TWG was cardinal in ensuring that interventions in various priority areas such as HIV, TB Malaria and MCH were on course and better health was delivered.
He said SI-TWG was going to be by ensuring that both transactional and aggregate information systems were deployed and supported in line with Smart Zambia and Ministry of Health suite of standards and guidelines.
Meanwhile, USAID Zambia Monitoring and Evaluation Division Chief, Dr Ashley Frost said her organisation had supported 68 health facilities with smart care on the Copperbelt.
USAID was a supporting partner to the Ministry of Health under E-health
Dr Frost said the smart care system provided USAID and the Ministry of Health with information on how many people had access to ARTs and other services.
She said the smart health care system was important because it made access to health faster, record keeping safer, private and reduced storage space for patient records.