East African body to spearhead digital technology in health

Bujumbura. While scanning the region in search of most burning health challenges as tasked, the East African Health Research Commission is not taking chances on digital technology.

“A regional approach to digital health is necessary to support many of our health priorities,” said EAHRC executive secretary Gibson Kibiki.

Technology-driven health is a way to go, he told journalists from the East African Community (EAC) partner states who visited the commission’s headquarters in Bujumbura recently.

The commission was established in 2007 and operationalised in 2015 as a principal advisory institution of the EAC on health research and development. It is a mechanism tasked to give advice on all matters pertaining to health and health-related research and findings that are necessary for knowledge generation, technological development and policy formulation.

Prof Kibiki emphasised information technologies will drive the operations of the regional institution in the hope it will be a key driver to improve health care delivery.

Digital health, he explained, can play a pivotal role in the implementation of real-time disease surveillance across the region.

The new road to health research through digitalisation is well articulated in a programme, dubbed ‘Digital Regional East African Community Health Initiative’ or simply Reach.

“The initiative is the first of its kind effort to take a regional perspective in advancing digital technology for health,” he explained.

The Digital Reach Initiative, to bring together the partner states governments, development partners and the private sector will build on and work with national health programmes.

According to him, the concept of the Digital Reach Initiative started in June 2016 when the commission initiative discussions with partners and experts in the field.

In March last year, it was presented to the EAHRC commissioners who in turn tabled it before the EAC Sectoral Council on Health and later to the Council whence it was approved.

The initiative, finally operationalized end of last year, introduces a unifying framework as its focus and work streams.

The framework features digital health programmes (or usage models) at the centre.

These programmes are enabled by two critical ICT components: services and application as well as infrastructure. They are also supported by ‘an enabling environment’ being leadership and governance, strategy and investment, skilled health workforce, harmonised standards and compliant policy and legislation.

Prof Kibiki said although the six nations in the bloc were in different stages of implementing their own health information systems (HIS), they are not far apart in the digital health programmes.

Many services and applications are present, he said, noting that countries are using common technologies such as the DHIS 2 platform and OpenHIE components.

“The used of common technologies combined with the fact that countries face similar challenges indicates a strong opportunity to share experiences and assets”, he said.

Challenges remain. These include the lack of digital health expertise, limited infrastructure, unreliable connectivity and fragmented eHealth initiatives.

Speaking during the visit, EAC secretary general Liberat Mfumukeko described as counter-productive the tendency by researchers and medics in the bloc to work in isolation as the region was one and diseases do not know borders.

He said the commission had been put in place out of the realisation that the region could not forever be dependent on medical research conducted abroad.

“This facility ought to bring together the best brains in health research from the entire region to tackle challenges faced by East Africans in accessing quality health care,” he explained.