Friday, October 22, 2010

Capacity for e-health in Africa

Yesterday, I returned from a whirlwind trip to Lagos, Nigeria- my first time in West Africa. I had heard so much about how I should expect it to be very different than East or Southern Africa, and it was- there was no mistake that I had just set foot into a bustling metropolitan, with the highest population density in the continent. From the second I got there, I kept thinking about the enormous potential this country had to become an emerging market ready to burst into success. A robust population, a thriving oil and gas industry with education and health beginning to take the forefront of discourse- I was excited at the thought of how much was possible!

I was in Lagos to conduct a workshop to train representatives from the media, private sector and select NGO's on the benefits of being advocates for pneumonia prevention. The four days I was there went by quickly- too quickly to absorb much- but being stuck in a 3 hour long traffic jam on the way back to the airport (usually a 20 minute drive when it is not rush hour), forced me to mull over the serious issues of infrastructure and governance, that were hard to miss in Nigeria. And ofcourse, e-health came to mind.

I started to wonder what was really holding the developing world back from lapping up information technology for healthcare. First, I recognized the problem of low institutional capacity- issues with infrastructure and connectivity, the legal and regulatory environment, as well as weak administrative structures. Closely following suite, were the limits on human capacity- there is a notable shortage of e-practitioners, or health workers who are capable of leveraging information technology, there is a lack of incentivising programs within the MoH that give eHealth-corps clear career prospects, and most importantly it is very hard to transform informed citizens from passive observers to active participants in the e-care giving process. These are all definitely deal breakers, and big hurdles to cross.

Here is an interesting presentation made at the 2009 ECOSOC Africa Regional Ministerial Meeting, showcasing the progress as well as the challenges in the use of information and communication technology in health.
ICT Infrastructure in Africa and the uptake of e-Health


There are definitely big hurdles to cross before a country like Nigeria becomes e-health friendly, but even as I arrived much too late to check-in for my flight, and somewhat nauseous from the long and bumpy car ride, I was certain that these were problems that could be overcome.
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1 comment:

  1. UnknownDecember 6, 2010 at 5:09 AM

    You are right that developing nations like India where IT technology has advanced can use it to make health care more effective through e-Health systems. However remember that it is Governments that most BPL families in these countries depend upon for their health needs. And the Govt sector is the slowest to accept IT technology. The advantage of doing this seems so obvious, yet it is so.
    Today private sector health care is expanding in India, and there IT techniques can be used, but the cost advantage that such use gives to the system is rarely passed on to the customer. This should change maybe through some philanthropic agencies- we have some already- and then the poor can shift from Govt to private sector. I read an interesting statistic- highly uncomplimentary to Govt- which said that poorer sections of society spend up to 50 % of what they earn on their health needs, obviously because they choose to go to private doctors rather than Govt even when they can barely afford it. The thing is to make this care as cheap as possible- there are too many undoables in trying to make this happen in Govt. V. Watsa

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