BY BENSON ATONGA AND HENRY KIBIRA:
MEDICAL Services minister Anyang’ Nyong’o is calling on Kenyans to embrace information technology in the provision and access to health services. Nyong’o said his ministry is committed to implement the goals of vision 2030 which seek to improve the health outcomes and indicators of Kenyans by shifting focus from curative to preventive, and eventually promotive health care.
He was speaking yesterday in Nairobi while launching a two-day workshop on e-health. The conference seeks to discuss ways of integrating m-health into e-health.
In a speech read on his behalf by PS Mary Ngari, Nyong’o reiterated the importance of e-health to workers and patients alike. “The making of information communication through application of knowledge has developed into what is today referred to as Information Communication Technology,” Nyong’o said, adding that the country’s success depends on how ICT is applied.
He said the country was making strides aimed at making the country globally competitive and prosperous, with high quality of life as envisaged in the Millennium Development Goals and the country’s Economic Recovery Strategy.
Nyong’o regretted that Africa accounts for 25 per cent of global communicable disease burden, yet it only comprises one per cent of total global expenditure on health care, “and contains only three per cent of the global health workforce.”
In August 2011 the government launched the first National e-health strategy 2011-2017 which Nyong’o said is integrated within vision 2030. Its overall goal is to have a health care system that ensures equitable, affordable and consumer friendly healthcare services at the highest achievable standard for Kenyan citizens.
“The mission is to promote and deliver efficient health services to Kenyans and consumers beyond our borders using ICT,”he said, adding that the main focus should be to strengthen and stimulate access to health care.
Source: http://www.the-star.co.ke
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