Experts want e-health integration in nation’s healthcare

 …As national policy on eHealth remains non-existent

The country is currently faced with the issue of delivering quality healthcare to majority of its populace. This is evident in the state of medical infrastructure in the three tiers of some of the nation’s healthcare institutions.

With successive governments having to carry out one form of refurbishment or the other at these health institutions, some existing health services are either not affordable or inaccessible to the vulnerable group, especially the indigent and people living in rural and underdeveloped areas.

Even as effect of this is reflected in the nation’s health indices which places the nation as one of the worst maternal, newborn and child mortality statistics across the globe, experts have tasked the Federal Government on the enactment of a national policy on electronic health (eHealth), and strategies that will ensure integration of e-health into the national healthcare system.

In a recent paper titled: “Challenges and Opportunity for eHealth in Nigeria,” Mohammed Lecky, director, Planning, Research and Statistics Department, Federal Ministry of Health, revealed that eHealth as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is the cost-effective and secure use of information and communications technologies(ICT) in support of health and health- related fields, including health-care services, health surveillance, health literature , and health education, knowledge and research.

While stating that an e-health enterprise is the comprehensive use of ICT to promote more efficient and effective management of the functions and services of the public health sector, Lecky pointed out that many health agencies, especially in the developed countries, and more recently in a good number of developing countries are taking advantage of ICT, to ensure that people have access to healthcare with ease.

“E-health and telemedicine involve the use of medical information transferred from one site to another through electronic communications to improve patient’s health care including diagnosis and treatment. Such information may be as simple as two medical professionals discussing a case over the telephone, or as advanced as using video teleconferencing systems.

“While this is operational in developed and developing countries across the globe, there is no national policy on healthy in Nigeria; what is in existence is a national information technology policy bill which is currently in the National Assembly for legislation and yet to be passed into law. The question is- can the health sector benefit from quicker access and receipt of relevant, and better quality health information; could such benefit be used to really improve people’s health through deployment of ICT in healthcare? The answer is yes,” Lecky noted.

Re-echoing Lecky’s sentiments, Olajide Adebola, president, Society for Telemedicine and e-Health in Nigeria , (SFTENIN) tasked the Federal Government to come up with strategies that will ensure integration of e-health into the national health care system.

In an interview with BusinessDay, Adebola disclosed that such strategies would help in coordinating the use of telemedicine and e-health tools in national health system. The medical expert stated that the government needs to put in place a policy that will enable the private sector take advantage of e-health services in the country.

According to Adebola, “We need a national e-health plan, a national e-health policy strategy and national e-health legislation. We need regulation, standardisation and ethics. This is a very critical role for the government, which requires it to harmonise all existing agencies that are doing similar activities and projects that have led to waste of resources.”

He explained that the telemedicine group had in the last five years advocated the need for a national coordinating mechanism, explaining that telemedicine is all about the use of information communications technology to provide and support health services from a distance.

“Telemedicine is used to provide health information services, to provide actual diagnostics for medical cases over a distance and it saves time; reduces the risk of consulting a quack and save patient from having to queue in the hospital,” he said.

Adebola further revealed that the May 2005 resolution of the WHO mandated all member states to evolve enabling policy and governance on e-health still stands. He maintained that the issue involved two different sectors of Information Technology (IT) and health departments, since the IT department could not guide the process alone.

Adebola further stated that “it takes a multi-sectoral collaboration to understand how the ICT sector is, what the challenges are and which of these national health priorities we want to use ICT for? Until the e-health enabling policy and e-health governance are in place, it will be difficult for an average Nigerian to benefit from telemedicine. Interestingly, four African countries: Uganda , Kenya , Ghana and Mali had established telemedicine policy. This is a challenge to the Federal Ministry of Health, as regulator of health sector in the country, to put in place a telemedicine policy.”

There is no gain-saying that the power of ICT to transform health system is undisputed. However, in order for eHealth to take root and grow in the country, it itself needs to be transformed from the passion of a select few, to the mainstream activity of the entire system.

However, the components in the non implementation of eHealth and telemedicine which must be addressed include professional practice issues, quality of care issues, and financial resources issues. In professional practice issues, unclear practice standards, provider resistance, lack of co-ordination and use of the non physician providers are the main barriers.