Challenges
Many pieces of basic equipment that are fundamental to health care are now only available in digitalized form and when they make their way to developing Member States countries these countries become digitalized. Obviously, PCs are not available on each primary health care centre in developing countries, but many are. What are perhaps not so widely available are the connections, the networks that make communication between the different pieces of equipment and health care personnel possible. But when they become established they hold a tremendous potential for taking teachers and training material effectively to rural districts in developing countries inter alia through e-learning solutions. And they hold a potential for taking specialists to primary health care e.g. through tele-conferences.
The question thus does not seem to be whether e-health should be an option for developing countries. It already is. The main challenge is make sure that these options are used optimally and in a coordinated manner to ascertain that the desired effects do come through and that resources are indeed not diverted away from basic needs. eHealth technologies are essential when they:
- are integrated into health services that meet basic needs;
- have been proven to be cost-efficient;
- are evidence-based.
Health technologies are evidence-based when they meet well-defined specifications and have been validated through controlled clinical studies or rest on a widely accepted consensus by experts.
These applications include tele-consultations, tele-referrals, forward-storage concepts (e.g. tele-radiology and tele-prescriptions) and electronic patient records.
The key word associated with applications used in ehealth for health-care delivery is integration of these applications into existing health systems.
The WHO programme on eHealth for Health Care Delivery programme has as main objectives to:
- strengthen the ability of Member States to address health problems through the use of e-health applications for prevention, diagnosis and patient management (eHCD applications);
- assist Member States in establishing safe and reliable eHCD applications through the adoption of sets of basic requirements for services covering policy, quality and safety, access and use;
- develop norms, standards, guidelines, information and training material and foster research on eHCD applications in support of the establishment of effective health services by Member States.