Sri Lanka is embarking on a new wave of development in the health sector through adaptation of information and communication technology (ICT) with the introduction of the “eHealth Policy of Sri Lanka.
This e Health policy development was mooted by Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne with the aim of improving National Health Service to international level and find solutions to existing problems in the health sector.
National eHealth Guidelines and Standards” were established in 2016 ensuring that future ICT adaptations in the health care sector.
The eHealth solutions introduced by the Ministry of Health are:. PHN and MPI (Personal Health Number and Master Patient Index); eIMMR (Electronic Indoor Morbidity and Mortality Registry); HHIMS (Hospital Health Information); HIMS (Hospital Information Management System); DNMS (District nutrition’s Management System); eRHIMS (Electronic Reproductive Health Information Management System); eNCD (Electronic Non Communicable Diseases System); • Suwasariya Telehealth Programme; Sri Lana Stroke Clinical Registry; and , Essential Drug Stroke Alert Tracker.
HHIMS is being used successfully in several state sector hospitals including National Hospital of Sri Lanka-Accident service (premier trauma care institute in Sri Lanka) and currently operational in all sections of OPD setup with enhanced usability and user friendliness.
During the year 2018 the system was being updated gradually through the lessons learnt from initial implementations and resource personnel.
Final outcome of this project is to improve quality and efficiency in service delivery, governance, accountability and effective use of resources of the government hospitals, Minister Rajitha Senaratne said.
He added that people of this country should be made aware of these facilities available for patients and its immense benefits rather than finding short comings in health administration.
As a result of that availability of updated, accurate information for patient care will be found, he said adding that this initiative helps to improve the capacity of health authorities to detect emerging and re- emerging diseases and take necessary preventive actions in future.
The scope of the HIMS project includes development of Hospital ICT infrastructure, improvement of end user ICT literacy and implementation of the HIMS.
Requirements of key stakeholders were taken into consideration in the development process and the solution adopt agile development methodology enabling accommodating end user needs, he pointed out.
(LI)