Bhutan goverment has implementing a ‘112’ emergency health call center. It is their first eHealth solution and people can request for an ambulance or ask for medical assistance through the service. With the help of the World Health Organization, the Ministry of Health had contracted an Indian software company to pilot the Hospital Information Management System (HMIS). The operating procedures are similar to common practices in developing countries; where the health indicators are hand calculated, then those aggregates are entered in to a computer at the hospital. The monthly aggregates are burned on to a CD and sent via post or emailed to the Ministry of Health for analysis.
Present day practices in developing countries like Bhutan do not allow for the much needed real-time disease surveillance. The aim of LIRNEasia’s recently concluded Real-Time Biosurveillance Program (RTBP) action research in India and Sri Lanka proved that mobile phones can bridge the information communication inefficiencies and spatio-temporal statistical data mining tools can rapidly detect heath events, from those received patient case data, in near-real-time. Detected disease events of significance (infectious or life-style diseases) are then relayed to health workers’ mobile phones for interventions.
Nuwan Waidyanatha presented the findings of the RTBP at the event, jointly organized by LIRNEasia and the Bhutan Infocomm and Media Authority. The RTBP evidence showed the effective use of the mobile application and bio-surveillance algorithms to enable early detection of diseases. The presentation was well received; especially by the Secretary of Health, Dr Gado Tshering.
One of the questions posed was whether or not such a system would be cost effective for Bhutan, given its population size. Nuwan explained that the pilots was conducted in the districts of Sivagangai in Tamil Nadu and Kurunegala in Sri Lanka, both those districts have a population equivalent to that of Bhutan. RTBP economic analysis shows that the monthly total cost of owning and operating the RTBP in a population that of the size of Bhutan would be as little as ONE Ngultram (equivalent to USD 0.025) per citizen.
The slides used in the presentation can be downloaded HERE
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