Mukono, 24th June 2016 - The Ministry of Health recognizes eHealth, as a key enabler for supporting the health system in order to deliver good health to the population as laid out in   the Health Sector Development and Investment Plan 2015/16– 2019/20. In that respect, the Ministry of Health with support from World Health Organization (WHO), Center for Disease Control (CDC), and United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) convened a two-day workshop at Colline Hotel, Mukono to validate the draft eHealth policy and strategy. 

The National eHealth Policy and Strategy are intended to provide guidance on how to use Information Communication Technology (ICT) to facilitate information flow to support the delivery of health services in the country. It also facilitates management of the health system in a bid to attain Universal Health Care, health sector efficiency and social transformation.

The Director of the Health Monitoring Unit (HMU) Dr. Diana Atwine appreciated the development of the eHealth policy and strategy saying,  “this will not only revolutionize the way we look after our patients but it will also change the way we keep, administer and access data.” She further said that the eHealth policy and strategy will be key factors in generation of quality health data and also enable the health sector to work with other systems. 

“As we look at this policy and strategy, we  have to harmonize with the existing policies at the national level; the ICT policy; e-government; e-waste policy; National Information Security; Cyber laws and the health policy”, said Mr. Moses Bagyendera the National Professional Officer– Public Health Informatics at the WHO Uganda Country Office.

eHealth avails real-time online data to patients and health workers and is also a means to better environment as it puts an end on the use of  tons of paper in the sector.

The workshop was attended by officials from MOH, UNICEF, CDC, WHO, Malaria Consortium, HMU, Academia, NGOs and the Makerere University Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Support (METS) Program.

NOTE:

WHO and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) published an eHealth Strategy Development Toolkit to guide countries along the path to eHealth Maturity. The toolkit recommends an approach to development of a national eHealth Strategy and includes considerations such as stakeholder engagement, policy and governance models. WHO and ITU further support the leveraging of information technologies (IT) to strengthen health systems.

This is done through supporting; country review of eHealth situation and regulatory frameworks; development and implementation of national policies and strategies on eHealth; development of norms and standards for different technology systems and software applications to communicate, exchange data, and use the exchanged information; and supporting countries to leverage IT to improve the availability and use of information.

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For more information, please contact:

Mwebembezi Edmond, Public Information Officer, Tel.: +256 414 335569, Cell: +256 782 962674, Email:mwebembezie [at] who.int (mwebembezie[at]who[dot]int)

Below: 01. The delegates at the workshop split into groups to discuss the policy and strategy 02. The participants at the eHealth Policy and Strategy Validation workshop at Colline Hotel, Mukono 03. The Uganda National eHealth Pillars