Summary
Objective
Describe the issues surrounding health informatics in developing countries and the
challenges faced by practitioners in building internal capacity. From these issues,
the authors propose cost-effective strategies that can fast track health informatics
development in these low to medium income countries (LMICs).
Methods
The authors conducted a review of literature and consulted key opinion leaders who
have experience with health informatics implementations around the world.
Results
Despite geographic and cultural differences, many LMICs share similar challenges and
opportunities in developing health informatics.
Conclusions
Partnerships, standards, and inter-operability are well known components of successful
informatics programs. Establishing partnerships can be comprised of formal inter-institutional
collaborations on training and research, collaborative open source software development,
and effective use of social networking. Lacking legacy systems, LMICs can discuss
standards and inter-operability more openly and have greater potential for success.
Lastly, since cellphones are pervasive in developing countries, they can be leveraged
as access points for delivering and documenting health services in remote under-served
areas. Mobile health or mHealth gives LMICs a unique opportunity to leapfrog through
most issues that have plagued health informaticsin developed countries. By employing
this proposed roadmap, LMICs can now develop capacity for health informaticsusing
appropriate and cost-effective technologies.
Keywords
eHealth - mHealth - mobile - partnerships - information systems
