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Africa News afrol News
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Africa News afrol News
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afrol.com, 13 November - Health care is the second largest industry in Africa but it is the most complex, cumbersome and paper-based. Lishan Adam argues that that information and communication technologies (ICT, in particular the internet) can make scarce healthcare resources work more effectively. There is only limited co-ordination amongst the different health care providers. Although major strides have been made over the last century in preventing disease and extending life, the situation in the health sector in Africa remains bleak. Life expectancy in most countries has declined below that of 1960s. Ravaging epidemics, spread of infectious disease, high level of infant and maternal mortality have now been exacerbated by a combined force of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculoses and Malaria (HTM). The incidence of AIDS is likely to diminish life expectancy by 20 years. All efforts to improve Africa's gains in economic development have been undermined by these threats to the health sector. Lishan Adams explains. These threats have put tremendous pressure on African Governments. Some countries have declared HIV/AIDS as a national crisis. Others have continued to focus on increasing the availability of healthcare, training more doctors, construction of clinics and hospitals. Unfortunately a vicious cycle has set in. Declining economic activity means less resources. Therefore there are less resources to combat illnesses in the productive workforce and this undercuts the very economic "motor" needed to produce more resources. Nevertheless, grounded observation and research indicates that most of Africa's health crisis is caused not by lack of resources alone but rather by information poverty and inadequate communication strategies to change attitudes to healthy life style, to control disease and change the quality of lives of communities and families. - Information poverty is one of the most serious obstacles facing health sector, according to Dr Ruhkana Rugunda, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uganda a medical doctor himself. Only a scant portion of the world's rapidly expanding medical knowledge trickles down to Africa. While most libraries in Europe subscribe to 2000-3000 medical journals, their equivalents in Africa often hold less than 30 old and sometimes discontinued medical journals. Efforts to bring connectivity and access to medical community in the region seems to remain poorly resourced. Whatever connections exist in the region they are mostly for medical faculty members not for students. Many deaths in Africa could have been avoided and several problems faced by health professionals could have been overcome simply by having adequate information at hand when needed. ICT could play a substantial role in shaping the information crises in the health sector in Africa. Opportunities are endless ranging from improving management and administration of health institutions, fostering teaching and research, supporting decision making on curative and preventive health, improving distribution of medical supplies and bridging gaps between access to health services in rural and urban areas. Significant benefits could also be achieved in primary health care. Over 90% African population that lives in rural areas could greatly benefit from information on better choice of food, safe water and basic nutrition, child care, family planning, immunization, prevention and control of endemic disease. Information and communication (traditional and modern combined) could play significant roles in collection of population-based health data and its transmission for decision making and research. Primary health care information could be gathered and packaged into programme content for community radios and telecentres to strengthen healthy life styles and to promote positive health behaviours. The chronic shortage of specialists in rural areas in Africa could be narrowed by application of telehealth/telemedicine. Pilot telemedicine projects such as the one linking doctors in Beira to radiologist in Maputo have already shown that telehealth can give rural areas a more informed and better level of health service. It provides diagnostic data and expert opinions from specialists to rural health attendants. Telemedicine has also been proved vital for consultation, continued medical education and reducing costs and inconvenience to patients and health services. The most significant benefit of ICTs could be derived from improving the management and administration of health services in Africa. A quick walk into a typical African hospital or health care center demonstrates enormous inefficiency, waste of resources, time and life. Poor quality of services, long queues and cumbersome treatment procedures that are costly both for patients and institutions are common. An overwhelmingly manual system in health institutions is prone to enormous inaccuracy, hinders the flow of information and impedes health care delivery and administration. Clinical Information Systems that cover patient records, bed-side data, lab records, drug use, demographic movement of patients, etc. could bring a substantial cost and life savings. Africa has also remained far behind in sharing its medical research. Although considerable knowledge has been gained through access to diseases as a result to high patient to doctor ratio, this has not been available to local health professionals, other countries in Africa and worldwide. Lack of access to growing medical information by health workers and medical students means that Africa has difficulty in keeping up with the magnitude of medical literature, guidelines for practices and experience and evidences and remained silent in sharing what it knows. ICTs have increasing role in bridging this two ways communications gap. Limited work has been done so far in shaping the use of information and communication technologies in the fight against HIV/AIDS elsewhere. However, it is clear that ICTs could play a key role in collection of demographic information to map the pandemic, in strengthening delivery of public education messages and to network professionals, care provides, decision makers and patients. There is already a growing community of people that uses computer networks to provide support and to help one another against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Using ICT as a central tool in the dissemination of health information and knowledge requires a concerted effort at all levels. Weak infrastructure, limited resources, resistance etc., will continue to work against using ICT in reducing the health information and knowledge gap. Most of these challenges cannot be dealt with by the health sector alone. Countries need to have strategic responses at a governmental level for the use and implementation of ICT. Countries need to co-ordinate regionally to develop and exchange of local content and knowledge and to pool resources. It is important to raise awareness of the implications of ICT in the health sector in Africa. It also vital to introduce medical informatics to medical research institutions through out Africa so as to build a "corps" of skilled champions that can use new technologies, disseminate knowledge and act as evangelists for reduction of information poverty through expanded use of ICTs for better health in Africa. Lishan Adam works for UNECA.
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