Health

eHealth in the Commonwealth – Challenges and Opportunities

Information is a core resource for healthcare, so every country needs good policies, strategies and plans to invest in information and communication technologies (ICT) and the associated organisational changes needed to improve health and healthcare.

These eHealth investments are not single events with fixed timescales or permanent solutions. They are continuous developments and offers excellent opportunities to strengthen healthcare. It also brings significant challenges that need addressing firmly and clearly to succeed.

Both are part of eHealth investment with a goal to strengthen countries’ different healthcare systems. These differences highlight the need for eHealth to be specific to each country.

ICT and organisational change comprise eHealth. They are both essential. The effort and investment needed has many parts, it is complex, it changes constantly and has to be congruent over time. The main eHealth themes include:

• Information needed, when and by whom to support health and healthcare strategies and services 
• The ICT needed to deliver this 
• Organisational, clinical and working practice changes needed to realise the benefits.

Up to the 1990’s, much ICT in health care supported administrative and financial activities. Then, the emphasis began to switch to clinical and operational information needed by healthcare professionals to support their work for patients.

At the turn of the century, this expanded to include health and healthcare information directly for patients. Now, healthcare organisations have immense opportunities to use eHealth as a core resource for healthcare professionals. In such a relatively short time scale, it is unsurprising that this relatively new and combined change brings challenges too.

It was with this in mind that the Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting in May 2008 agreed to hold high-level meetings between Ministers of Health and Ministers responsible for ICT to:

• Identify regional priorities and challenges 
• Foster strategic partnerships 
• Reach a consensus on eHealth projects in selected countries 
• Promote exchange of information on eHealth expertise.

The first event was in East, Central and Southern Africa. With ECSA, the Commonwealth Secretariat supported the high-level dialogue. The outcome was the need for two workbooks for:

• eHealth policy and strategy template 
• eHealth assessment tool. 

The work to develop these identified two additional requirements:

• eHealth proposal template 
• Draft heading for eHealth strategies.

These four workbooks are the Secretariat’s first phase of eHealth support.
After testing the four workbooks with users, they are now available for use by Commonwealth countries. These workbooks derive from countries efforts, knowledge, experiences and initiatives to:

• Identify and share opportunities, challenges and lessons 
• Learn from each other 
• Identify practical steps to achieve their eHealth goals 
• Identify the stakeholders and approaches to their engagement in eHealth. 

The Secretariat’s initial priority is supporting developing countries in investing in eHealth as part of their initiatives to strengthen their health systems.

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