Question

I need Help with this question.

discuss What is E-health & National health information system and what policies have been made by MOH to apply E-health in Saudi Arabia hospitals providing examples.

Answer 1

ANSWER:

e- health:

e-Health is the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for health. e-health is an emerging field connecting medical informatics, public health and business, referring to health services and information delivered or enhanced through the Internet and related technologies. In a broader sense, the term characterizes not only a technical development, but also a state-of-mind, a way of thinking, an attitude, and a commitment for networked, global thinking, to improve health care locally, regionally, and worldwide by using information and communication technology.

e-Health is the cost-effective and secure use of information and communication technologies in support of the health and health-related fields including healthcare, health surveillance and health education, knowledge and research.

National Health Information System:

The health information system provides the assistance for decision-making and has four key functions: data generation, compilation, analysis and synthesis, and communication and use. The health information system collects data from the health sector and other relevant sectors, analyses the data and ensures their overall quality, relevance and timeliness, and converts data into information for health-related decision-making.

Health information systems serve multiple users and a wide array of purposes that can be summarized as the generation of information to enable decision-makers at all levels of the health system to identify problems and needs, make evidence-based decisions on health policy and allocate scarce resources optimally.

Information about the functioning of the health information system can be obtained from the different sectors and agencies that have responsibilities for the generation, synthesis, analysis and use of data at country, regional and global levels. At country level, Ministries of Health record the timeliness and quality of data reported through health services and disease surveillance systems.

Policies made by MOH to apply E-health in Saudi Arabia hospitals:

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has a vision to improve the equability, standards, availability and quality of care in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The MOH has developed a business strategy and 5 year plan to realize this vision, and has positioned e-Health as a primary transformation agent and enabler. To enable the vision, MOH, working with national and international advisors and IBM, has developed an e-Health Strategy and 5 year Road map. The e-Health strategy supports the primary MOH business goals:

• To Care For Patients.

• To Connect Providers at all levels of care.

• To Measure the Performance of healthcare delivery.

• To Transform Healthcare Delivery to a consistent, world-class standard.

As per the MOH of Saudi Arabia, significant e-Health benefit, is the immediate availability of complete data, for clinical decision making, health system management, and research and trend detection. According to the Kingdom, this benefit too, depends on the standardization of information management.

As per the MOH of Saudi Arabia, the e-Health strategy focuses on enabling key integration points, which span facilities and regions (and potentially other health delivery organizations) to enable data exchange and sharing across of a diverse range of data, such as:

• Admissions and demographic data for patients.

• Orders for ancillary departments such as Laboratory and Radiology.

• Reports for diagnostic tests such as pathology and radiology.

• Radiology and other Images.

• Clinical documentation, including progress notes, discharge summaries.

• Summarized health history, including past diagnosis.

• Medication prescribing and dispensing.

• Allergies, immunizations.

By applying standards in these areas, including clinical terminologies and secure communication standards, accurate automated communications between systems, facilities and regions will be possible, providing the foundation for an exceptional electronic health record, as well as contributing to the ability of the MOH to perform data mining, knowledge management and health sector management and research analytics.