INTRODUCTION
The UNU International Institute for Global Health
(UNU-IIGH) seeks to contribute to the development and strengthening of health
services policy frameworks and management actions, particularly for people in
developing countries and to support implementation of promotive and preventive
approach to human health.
The
objectives of UNU-IIGH are to:
·
enhance
the efficiency, quality, access and equity in the delivery of healthcare
services;
·
undertake
and strengthen research in global health towards achieving the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs);
·
facilitate
dissemination of information and innovation on global health to developing
countries;
·
build
and enhance capacities crucial in addressing global health issues, especially
in developing countries; and
·
promote
networking among research institutions in developed and developing
countries.
ROLE OF INFORMATION
SYSTEM IN E-HEALTH
Healthcare is a very important part of our society and it is
imperative for healthcare providers to do their jobs in an efficient and
effective manner. Each day hundreds of thousands of patients enter healthcare
facilities challenging the administration to run the show smoothly. The
employees have to manage and integrate clinical, financial and operational
information that grows with the practice. Previously, this data was organized
manually, which was time consuming and failed to deliver the desired level of
efficiency. Most professionally run hospitals and clinics now rely on hospital
information systems ( HIS ) that help them manage all their medical and
administrative information. A hospital information system ( HIS ) is
essentially a computer system that can manage all the information to allow
health care providers to do their jobs effectively. These systems have been
around since they were first introduced in the 1960s and have evolved with time
and the modernization of healthcare facilities. The computers were not as fast
in those days and they were not able to provide information in real time as
they do today. The staff used them primarily for managing billing and hospital
inventory. All this has changed now, and today hospital information systems
include the integration of all clinical, financial and administrative
applications.
Hospital information systems have become very advanced and new
innovations are continuously being introduced. But a HIS is useless if it
confuses the hospital employees. The system must be user friendly and should
include training by the vendors. A good HIS offers numerous benefits to a
hospital including but not limited to the delivery of quality patient care and
better financial management. The HIS should also be patient centric, medical
staff centric, affordable and scalable. The technology changes quickly and if
the system is not flexible it will not be able to accommodate hospital growth.
An effective HIS also delivers benefits such as:
·
enhances information
integrity
·
reduces transcription
errors
·
reduces duplication of
information entries
·
optimizes report
turnaround times
APPLICATION OF
HEALTHCARE (E-HEALTH)
E-Health
Research Group is a group and it is established with the aim to improve the
delivery of healthcare services in Malaysian healthcare industry. Innovation in
health information technology may help healthcare industry to realize the
potential of information systems and to maximize the benefits of IT
applications. Specifically, this group is keen to assist Malaysian healthcare
industry to realize the full potential of information systems to help deliver
better quality of healthcare services at low cost. Apart from that it will
evaluate the success of current information systems (IS) in health and improve
them to maximize the potential of IT in health. The important initial research
is to address information systems issues in healthcare and the delivery of
healthcare services such as social and ethical issues. It focuses on improving
ways in evaluating the IT deployment in healthcare organizations in Malaysia.
At the same time, aims at improving patient care through innovative use of IT
among medical practitioners.
USES
OF INFORMATION SYSTEM IN PUBLIC HEALTHCARE
Public
Health is the science of protecting and improving the health of communities
through education, promotion of healthy lifestyles, and research for disease
and injury prevention. Public health professionals analyze the effect on health
of genetics, personal choice and the environment in order to develop programs
that protect the health of your family and community.
Overall,
public health is concerned with protecting the health of entire populations.
These populations can be as small as a local neighborhood, or as big as an
entire country.
Public
health professionals try to prevent problems from happening or re-occurring
through implementing educational programs, developing policies,
administering services, regulating health systems and some health
professions, and conducting research, in contrast to clinical
professionals, such as doctors and nurses, who focus primarily on treating
individuals after they become sick or injured. It is also a field that is
concerned with limiting health disparities and a large part of public health is
the fight for health care equity, quality, and accessibility.
The
field of public health is highly varied and encompasses many academic disciplines.
However, public health is mainly composed of the following core areas:
- Behavioral Science/Health Education
- Biostatistics
- Emergency Medical Services
- Environmental Health
- Epidemiology
- Health Services Administration/Management
- International/Global Health
- Maternal and Child Health
- Nutrition
- Public Health Laboratory Practice
- Public Health Policy
- Public Health Practice
ADVANTAGES
OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN HEALTH
Information
systems can improve cost control, increase the timeliness and accuracy of
patient care and administration information, increase service capacity, reduce
personnel costs and inventory levels, and improve the quality of patient care.
However, experience shows that most of these benefits will not occur
automatically following system implementation. Operational problems may exist
that diminish information timeliness, accessibility, and accuracy; policies and
procedures may not have been sufficiently tailored to reflect the realities and
intents of the systems; and personnel tasks may not have been adequately
restructured. In order to realize the full potential of information systems,
health care organizations must plan for and implement strategies that are
designed to maximize such benefits. This describes a method for developing
benefits maximization strategies. The processes used to define strategies and
their outcomes are presented.
SUMMARY
The eHealth
Symposium 2013 is proudly brought to you by the CIGMA (Centre for Information
Governance, Management, and Audit) and Department of Information Systems,
College of Information Technology, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia.
Organized by the eHealth Research Group, College of Information Technology,
UNITEN, this symposium is intended to bring together the enormously varied
community of researchers with an interest in ehealth to showcase their work,
and exchange expertise, interests and ideas, with a view to establishing future
collaborations and strengthening the eHealth research area. Gearing towards the symposium’s theme: Revolutionizing Health Care – Delivering
Health Services The Smart Way. eHealth
Symposium 2013 has teamed up with the International Journal of Healthcare
Information Systems and Informatics (IJHISI) for publishing a Special Journal
Issue on eHealth.
Professor Dr.
Syed Aljunid officiated the event and delivered the keynote paper entitled
‘e-Health: Real Solutions or Problems for Developing Countries?’. In his
keynote paper, Professor Syed Aljunid highlighted the the importance of
e-health as an enabler to support developing countries to achieve Universal
Coverage. He also stressed the importance of research and development to
evaluate the outcome of e-health projects since many such projects failed to
achieve the intended objectives in developing countries. The roles played by
UNU-IGH in building health human resource capacties and developing softwares on
casemix system and health information system based on open source technology in
low income countries was deliberated in his keynote address. In addition to the
the keynote session, intern of Dr. Nurhizam Safie, Naima Omar presented her
paper in the symposium track. The title of her presentation was ‘Conceptual
Modeling of Patient Management System: Malaysian Public University Health
Center’. The symposium was attended by around 150 participants, mostly are
researchers, postgraduate students, government officers and ICT consultants.
REVIEW OF KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Professor Dr.
Syed Mohamed Aljunid
M.D, MSc; Ph.D
FAMM; DSNS
Professor of
Health Economics
Senior Research
Fellow
United Nations
University-International Institute For Global Health,
HUKM Complex,
Jalan. Yaacob Latiff, 56000 Cheras
Kuala Lumpur,
MALAYSIA
CONTACT Tel No.:
603 – 9171 5394 Fax No.:603 – 9171 5402
Email: syed.aljunid@iigh.unu.edu
Dr. Syed Mohamed Aljunid is a Professor of
Health Economics and Senior Research Fellow in United Nations
University-International Institute for Global Health. Prior to this he served
as a Professor of Health Economics and Consultant in Public Health Medicine and
Head of Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, National University
of Malaysia(UKM). He obtained his MD from UKM in 1985, Master of Science Public Health from National University of
Singapore in 1989 and PhD in Health Economics and Financing Programme, London School
of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1995. He is a Fellow of Academy of Medicine
Malaysia since 2000.
His
main interest is in the strengthening of health care system of developing
countries through research and development in health economics and financing.
He is currently involves in supporting a number of developing countries to
develop and implement case-mix system, a health management and information tool
to enhance quality and efficiency of healthcare services. He was appointed as
the Consultant and Advisor to Ministry of Health Indonesia on the implementation
of Case-mix System for Health Financing Programme in public and teaching
hospitals in the country from September 2005 to December 2009. From September
2006, he was appointed as a Consultant for Asian Development Bank for
Implementation of Case-Mix System to improve quality and efficiency of health
care services covered by National Health Insurance Scheme in Mongolia.
He
served as consultants and advisers to a number of international agencies such
as World Health Organisations, UN-AIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, GAVI and the World Bank.