Department of Information Technology Role of ICT on Health

BY [Dejen Agaziu....ENG(R) /222/2002] [Ermiyas Birhanu....ENG(R) /279/2002] [Habetamu Wubalem......ENG(R) /381/2002] [Defaru Densa..ENG(R) /220/2002] [Daniel Bizuwork.ENG(R) /206/2002] [Eshete Aligaz..ENG(R) /283/2002] BAHIR DAR, ETHIOPIA
Submited to: Mekonen W.

Due Date- May 28-2005

Contents
Contents..................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction................................................................................................................ 3 Objectives................................................................................................................... 4 Literature Review for role of ICT in health..................................................................5 Findings from the literature........................................................................................ 8 Conclusion: ................................................................................................................ 9 ................................................................................................................................. 10 ................................................................................................................................. 11 Connectivity : Physical infrastructure available to a country: per capita internet hosts, PCs, telephone mainlines and mobile phones. Excludes electricity, broadband, and affordability measures...................................................................12 Access: Number ofinternet users, adult literacy rate, cost of a local call, and GDP per capita Policy :Comprises presence of internet exchanges, competition in the local loop / domestic long distance and competition in the internetservice provider market...................................................................................................................... 12 ICT diffusion index can be calculated from the formula:..........................................12 ICT diffusion = (Connectivity + Access+ Policy) /3...................................................12 ICT diffusion takes on valuesfrom 0 to 1 range (eg. Iceland hasthe highest ICT diff in Europe = 0,76); ....................................................................................................... 12 Low ICT diffusion value for a given country indicates obstacles in eHealth development. Better telecommunicationsinfrastructure, more reliable and user friendly access devices are of a high priority in developing countries. ....................12 Bibliography............................................................................................................. 13

Introduction
Improved health and poverty reduction go hand in hand, not least since good health is a prerequisite for better living conditions. Hence, three out of eight Millennium Development Goals are related to health issues. There is an urgent need to improve child and maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. ICT can extend health education, transfer advice on treatment, and bring help where health personnel are out of reach. Smart combinations of ICT can be used to improve planning and delivery of health services, as well as awareness raising and preventive measures, not least through edutainment efforts that combined different media and communication technologies in innovative ways. All in all, both the health sector at large as well as individual citizens can benefit from improved information and communication, thus strengthening the right to development through better health.

Objectives
Increasing quality of care and efficiency. Reducing operating costs of clinical services. ICTs can contribute to the reduction of operating costs of clinical services through improvement in the way tasks are performed, by saving time with data processing, and by reducing multiple handling of documents. Experience in other sectors shows that these functional improvements can have a positive effect on staff productivity. The evidence in the health sector is, however, generally mixed depending on the context and the technology used. Reducing administrative costs. Enabling entirely new modes of care. Reducing an unhealthy distance The starting point of our health programmers is the improvement of healthcare services using ICT. Improving information channels in rural communities can have an enormous impact on diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, diarrhea and water-related illnesses, all of which are continuing to have a devastating impact upon the health of the rural populations in developing countries. In addition, by improving information flows the projects we are supporting are helping to provide communities with information on issues such as family planning, prenatal and maternal care. Improving the information and communication technology infrastructure in the health sector: by networking all health institutions and by providing adequate ICT tools for service delivery and management.

 Improve access to and management of health information: by deploying a health information dissemination network and an health information management system network. Improve access to quality health services: by deploying telemedicine applications in the health sector and by utilizing ICTs to enhance the referral, emergency and disaster management systems. Improve ICT knowledge, capability and utilization among health workers: By providing training in ICT skills to all prospective and current health workers; By maintaining a critical group of ICTs specialists in the health sector; and By deploying ICTs to support and enhance job functions of health workers.

Literature Review for role of ICT in health

Nichols: Healthcare is an information intensive industry
Healthcare is an information intensive industry and healthcare professionals rely on access to correct and comprehensive information, when and where they need it, to inform the daily decisions they make about a persons care. Information and communications technology is largely absent from the way we generate, capture and share health information as we continue our reliance on handwritten paper records. To say that this reliance on paper is inefficient, wastes money and scarce resources and compromises patient safety and the quality of care is an understatement (Nichols, 2008). In order to meet these challenges and ensure the sustainability of healthcare, we need to change the way healthcare is funded and delivered. Failure to do so means these challenges go unchecked, needs go unmet, and the health system continues its downward spiral of unsustainability with resultant detrimental flow on effects for workforce participation, productivity and economic growth.

Dzenowagis
According to WHO, the use of ICTs in health is not merely about technology (Dzenowagis, 2005)but a means to reach a series of desired outcomes: health workers making better treatment decisions hospitals providing higher quality and safer care people making informed choices about their own health governments becoming more responsive to health needs national and local information systems supporting the development of effective, efficient and equitable health systems policy makers and the public aware of health risks People having better access to the information and knowledge they need for better health.

AMREF: using telemedicine to improve rural health

The African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) are improving its clinical outreach programmer with the help of telemedicine. A number of sites have been set up to test the approach and gradually expand across nearly 80 rural hospitals currently served by AMREF across East Africa. The AMREF telemedicine project provides expert second opinion to clinicians in those hospitals supported by the AMREF outreach program. The primary goal is to improve the quality of and access to specialist care. The secondary goal is to improve care through training using tele-consultation and CME courses (AMREF, 2009). An AMREF clinician and consultant physicians consult on specific cases. Clinical staff from the rural hospital use email to forward the case notes and supporting images of the patients to be seen the following day. Notes may be scanned images of handwritten notes or PC-based using proprietary software. Digital images of the patient, digital images and/or video clips of any visible lesion, and digital images of X-rays can accompany the notes this paper is part of a study commissioned by the infoDev program Grant no. 1254 page 22
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AJEET MATHUR: ITs role in design of healthcare products and services.

IT has created opportunities for optimizing linkages between domestic markets and exports/imports which is reflected in the design of healthcare products and services. The notion of `Telemedicine thus emerged as the practice of using audio, visual and data communications for medical consultations, diagnosis, treatment, nursing care, medical education and transfer of medical data together with a broader concept of `TeleHealth which includes Telemedicine and healthcare management, surveillance, literature and access to knowledge from a distance, using ICT. The notion of E-health has gradually emerged to describe the combined use of electronic communication and information technology to enable transfers and interactivity (Ajeet Mathur, September 2003)

A. Omotosho, O.J. Emuoyibofarhe, O. Adegboola et al: ICT in Health care delivery system: A Framework for developing nations
The aim of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Health (also known as eHealth) is to improve significantly the quality, access and efficacy of healthcare for all citizens. This paper aims to discuss how ICT has contributed of health in different part of the world, its cost effectiveness and provide a framework for implementation in developing countries with evidences to why developing nations must embrace the opportunity and benefits of ICT in their health sector reform (A. Omotosho, 2012).

Robert Rudowski: Impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on Health Care
ICT has an impact on many aspects of health care. The most important are accessibility to health care services by citizens, economical aspect and quality of care aspect. The main goal is to provide access for the citizen at any time and in any place. eHealth can certainly provide such an access especially in the regions where physician may not be available. The continuously rising costs are the main problem of the contemporary health service in many countries. These costs may not be acceptable both for developing and developed countries. EHealth can decrease the costs of health care by decentralizing the care enabling medical services at a lower level where they are cheaper (e.g. regional hospital instead of university hospital), or by avoiding patient transport to the hospital when it is not necessary (Robert Rudowski).

Findings from the literature

Telemedicine - use of medical information exchanged from one site to another via electronic
communications to improve patients' health status. (ATA)

Telehealth use of information and communication and technologies to deliver health services
and transmit health information over both long and short distances. Its about transmitting voice, data, images, and information rather than moving patients or healthcare practitioners and educators. (CST)

Telenursing - is the practice of nursing over distance using telecommunication technology.

E-Health- EHealth is a relatively new term in health care practice and one of the most rapidly growing areas in health and ICT today. The World Health Organization defines eHealth as the cost-effective and secure use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in support of health and health- related fields, including health-care services, health surveillance, health literature , and health education, knowledge and research.(WHO 2005). Ehealth is the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for health (WHO, 2008).

Conclusion:
The growth of the Internet and ICT technologies had a large impact on modern healthcare. A fundamental need is to design novel electronic healthcare services that improve peoples health and well-being but also extend beyond the individual towards sustainability of our society. However, although the use of ICT in healthcare can offer several benefits to the society, the adoption of electronic healthcare services relies also on ethical and societal aspects such as the trust that end-users (e.g., patients and physicians) has towards such services. There are three main areas in which ICT can help to make healthcare more effective and efficient. These are management of healthcare, medical treatment, prevention. Innovative ICT solutions in theses areas may be based on advancements towards ubiquitous and personalized network access and the miniaturization and connectivity of devices. New or improved equipment might be used for enhancing healthcare, such as miniaturized and cheaper electronics and sensors, high-density memory, micro-electromechanical systems, and novel combinations of existing devices. The decreasing cost and size of sensors, monitors and other equipment enables both novel uses for existing technologies and applications of completely new technologies. The increasing bandwidth and pervasiveness of communication networks, including ad-hoc and sensor networks, opens up new opportunities for transferring medical information faster through both wired and wireless systems. Information and communication technologies (ICT) combined with wireless and mobile devices, are strengthening the production, dissemination and global use of health information. The increasing capacity of information producers, intermediaries and users is triggering the explosive growth of easily accessible information.

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Connectivity : Physical infrastructure available to a country: per capita internet hosts, PCs, telephone mainlines and mobile phones. Excludes electricity, broadband, and affordability measures. Access: Number ofinternet users, adult literacy rate, cost of a local call, and GDP per capita Policy :Comprises presence of internet exchanges, competition in the local loop / domestic long distance and competition in the internetservice provider market. ICT diffusion index can be calculated from the formula: ICT diffusion = (Connectivity + Access+ Policy) /3 ICT diffusion takes on valuesfrom 0 to 1 range (eg. Iceland hasthe highest ICT diff in Europe = 0,76); Low ICT diffusion value for a given country indicates obstacles in eHealth development. Better telecommunicationsinfrastructure, more reliable and user friendly access devices are of a high priority in developing countries.

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Bibliography
A. Omotosho, ict in health care delivery system: a framework for developing nations, O. E. (2012). Ajeet Mathur, ITs role in design of healthcare products and services, S. 2. (September 2003). AMREF, using telemedicine to improve rural health, (2009). Dzenowagis. (2005). Nichols, P. e. (2008). Robert Rudowski, D. o. (n.d.), Impact of Information and Communication Technologies

(ICT) on Health Care

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