Mobile penetration will help e-Health sector boom

Indunil HEWAGE

Escalating mobile penetration will play a major role in the e-Health sector while paving way to establish an IT enabled healthcare sector in the country.

The country has already recorded a 75 mobile penetration and will achieve the 100 percent mobile penetration mark in two years, Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) COO Reshan Devapura said.

"Healthcare providers and service consumers must be empowered with ICT skills.

It is vital to establish trilingual websites which consist of health related services and information to provide an efficient health service to the people.

"All private and Government hospitals, insurance companies, laboratories and health related institutions should come together to provide e-Health services to all segments of the people in the country," he said.

Speaking at the launch of "e-Health Sri Lanka 2010 Conference Program" yesterday, Dewapura said private healthcare organizations and hospitals are playing a major role for the development of e-health policy in the country and have already started e-channelling services and e-channelling services through SMSes.

"The country needs to have an electronic patients' record and also needs to ensure the data is safe and confidential".

"Sri Lanka will also introduce an electronic population registry before the end of this year which will include all information about the public from their birth," he said.

The country's e-Health system is backward when compared to other countries in the Asia region and adopting latest technologies and latest trends in the world will assist to implement a successful e-health policy in the country.

Health Ministry Information Director Dr S R U Wimalaratne said Sri Lanka has already an established e-steering committee, e-health sub committee and appointed a draft formulating group to empower the e-Health policy in the country. Components of e-health system are electronic health records, health informatics system, telemedicine, Mhealth, health knowledge base, medical supply chain management and automated hospital reservations.

"Some of issues related to e-Health projects are ownership, copyright of source code, lack of knowledge to further develop the system," Dr Wimalaratne said.