eHealth in Sri Lanka
eHealth in Sri Lanka The development of eHealth in Sri Lanka is a joint effort of the Ministry of Health (MoH); the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), Specialty Board in Biomedical Informatics, Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo (PGIM); and the Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka (HISSL). This booklet was compiled and published by the HISSL to showcases some of the ongoing key eHealth activities in Sri Lanka to mark the 15th Anniversary of the HISSL which fell on 15 November 2013.
Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka
The Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka (HISSL) [http://www.hissl.lk] is the professional association of all those in the field of eHealth in Sri Lanka. The inaugural meeting was held on 15th November 1998 at 0900 hrs at the Lionel Memorial Auditorium of the Sri Lanka Medical Association with Dr. Shyam Fernando in the Chair and Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Advisor to the Minister of Science and Technology, as the Chief Guest. 75 persons attended this meeting. The constitution of the Society was adopted.
The picture shows from left to right Dr. Vajira H. W. Dissanayake (Founder Secretary), Prof. Tissa Vitharana, the late Prof. MTM Jiffry and Prof. Shyam Fernando (Founder President) lighting the oil lamp at the start of the inaugural meeting.
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The primary objectives of HISSL are: 1. To promote the use of computers and information technology in teaching, learning, research and delivery of care in the field of health. 2. To improve computer and information technology literacy of health care professionals. 3. To improve the access by health care professionals to computer hardware, software and information technology services. 4. To improve and facilitate continuing professional development of members. 5. To improve and facilitate research and development in health informatics. 6. To foster collaboration with national, regional and international medical, informatics and professional associations. 7. To foster fellowship among members.
The picture shows a section of the audience at the inaugural meeting held at the Lionel Memorial Auditorium of the Sri Lanka Medical Association on 15 November 2013. In the front row from right to left are three Presidents of HISSL – Prof. Vajira H. W. Dissanayake (Current President), Prof. Resvi Sheriff (Immediate Past President) and the late Prof. MTM Jiffry.
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Human Resources for eHealth in Sri Lanka The development of Human Resources for eHealth in Sri Lanka has two strategies. The first strategy is the creation of a group of ICT competent doctors who can work as the interface between the medical and ICT profession to spearhead the planning, development, implement, monitoring and evaluation of ICT projects in the Health Sector in Sri Lanka working in close collaboration with Medical Administrators. This is done through the MSc course in Biomedical Informatics of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo (PGIM).
The first batch of MSc students at the eIndia 2009 conference.
The course was initiated in 2007 as a joint project between the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and the University of Oslo, Norway by Prof. Vajira H. W. Dissanayake, the current President of HISSL, and Prof. Sundeep Sahay, Professor, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. with the support of Prof. Resvi Sheriff, the Director of the PGIM, who was at that time also the President of HISSL. The course was supported by a NOMA grant funded by Norad and managed by the Norwegian Center for International Corporation in Higher Education (SIU). 3
So far 73 graduates have graduated from the course. They are deployed across the public health sector in Sri Lanka both at central and regional level. The PGIM hopes to commence the MD in Biomedical Informatics course in 2015. This would enable the successful graduates to become board certified as Health and Medical Informatics Specialists in Sri Lanka. This would make Sri Lanka one of the few countries in the world to have such specialists. The second strategy is the development of ICT literacy among the health workforce. The government of Sri Lanka has made the following commitment to the United Nations “Sri Lanka will empower the health sector through capacity building and leadership in information and communication technology. More specifically, the Government will provide education, training, and assessment to 100,000 members of the work force using a royalty-free open source based technology platform developed by Intel. Sri Lanka will provide training and will certify the 100,000 members of the workforce on information and communication technology by 2015 and also implement a basic electronic health record for children in 5,000 schools that would enable the health sector planners to launch prioritized health programmes by 2015.� A similar commitment has also been made by the government in its policy statement – Mahinda Chithana. This process is just about to begin with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Health and Intel.
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Strategic Planning for eHealth in Sri Lanka by the Ministry of Health Strategic planning for eHealth in Sri Lanka began with the establishment of the National eHealth Steering Committee in the Ministry of Health in September 2010. Working under the directions of this committee and Dr. S.R.U. Wimalaratne, Director (Information), Ministry of Health, the National eHealth Technical Committee has developed the following national eHealth Base Documents which are in the final stages of official endorsement: -
National eHealth Policy National eHealth Standards and Guidelines National eHealth Strategy
The national eHealth Policy articulates the guiding principles for eHealth in the healthcare sector of Sri Lanka. Its vision is to streamline the adoption and use of ICT in the Healthcare Sector of Sri Lanka. Its mission is to facilitate adoption of ICT solutions appropriately in the healthcare sector of Sri Lanka to improve the quality, efficiency, patient 5
safety, and cost effectiveness of health care thus contributing to achieve the goals set out in the National Health Policy. The Standards and Guidelines and the Strategic Plan are aimed at achieving this vision and mission. A parallel process is the acceptance of a uniform health identification number (HIN) to be used across the health care services to identify patients. The proposed HIN is also in its final stages of official endorsement.
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National Foundation for Open Source Health Software of Sri Lanka (NFOSHS-SL) Software is an integral and indispensable component of ICT and is invariably costly. Reliable Open Source Health Software is free and abundant. Hence, Sri Lanka can also adopt suitable Free and Open Source Health Software solutions. In order to achieve this objective, the Ministry of Health (MoH) in collaboration with the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka under the guidance of Mr. Wasantha Deshapriya, Director, Re-engineering Government, through a series of consultations, has decided to set up a foundation. This is named the National Foundation for Open Source Health Software of Sri Lanka (NFOSHS-SL) and is aimed at promoting, and facilitating free and open source software (FOSS) in healthcare solutions for adoption of the Ministry of health (MoH) in Sri Lanka. The foundation held its inaugural meeting on 31 October 2013. As far as we are aware this is the first such foundation in the field of health anywhere in the world. The objectives of the Foundation are, to: 1. maintain a complete and up-to-date list of applicable open source health software solutions; 2. promote open source software solutions in health sector; 3. evaluate appropriate open source health software solutions on request from National eHealth Steering Committee and provide recommendations or make recommendations without request whenever necessary; 4. ensure quality of adopted open source software solutions in health sector and make sure such solutions are in compliance with National eHealth Standards and Guidelines; and
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5. provide technical support to the National eHealth Steering Committee wherever necessary in adopting recommended open source software solutions.
The first free and open source software for health adopted by NFOSHS-SL for evaluation – the Hospital Health Information Management System: http://www.himss.org
The Ministry of Health and the Provincial Health Departments have commenced projects using World Health Organizations Open Standards DHIS2 and openMRS. It is envisaged that these projects would be coordinated through the NFOSHS-SL in the future.
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eIMMR The first system approved for country wide implementation in the Health Sector in Sri Lanka Collection of nationwide real time data on indoor morbidity and mortality (IMMR) is challenging. The eIMMR system developed by Dr. Nadish Kariyawasam and Dr. Buddika Dayaratne is now making this possible in Sri Lanka. Initially developed as a MSc student project in 2009. It has now been taken over by the Ministry of Health. It is the first software tool approved by the Ministry of Health for nationwide deployment. It is currently implanted in over 90 health care institutions (out of a total of 635 secondary and tertiary care institutions). These institutions account for approximately 25% of the total nationwide hospital admissions in Sri Lanka. It is hoped that all institutions will use the eIMMR system for reporting their statistics by 2017.
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Sri Lanka Journal of Bio-medical Informatics The Sri Lanka Journal of Bio-medical Informatics (SLJBMI) published jointly by the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine of the University of Colombo and the Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka is the primer Sri Lankan journal in the field of Biomedical Informatics. The fist issue of the Journal was published in January 2010. It is published quarterly. The Editor in Chief of the Journal is Dr. B. J. C. Perera with Prof. Vajira H. W. Dissanayake, Prof. Jayantha Weerasinghe, Dr. Rohana Marasinghe, and Dr. Roshan Hewapathirana serving as Executive Editors. It is a pre-reviewed open access journal available freely on the Sri Lanka Journals online platform at the URL: http://www.sljol.info/index.php/SLJBMI
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The folder accompanying this booklet contains leaflets published by the Ministry of Health on various ICT initiatives in the Health Sector in Sri Lanka.