eHealth

Abstract

E-health, the application of information and communications technologies in healthcare, is viewed as imperative for the successful implementation of healthcare reforms such as South Africa’s re-engineering of its primary healthcare system and the development of a National Health Insurance. However, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health, has expressed his concern about the prevalence of manual health information systems in the public sector as well as the challenge regarding the lack of interoperability between existing electronic systems. Chetty will provide an overview of current national e-health initiatives and discuss progress against the targets set in the National eHealth Strategy, which was published by the DoH in 2012. These initiatives include the Normative Standards Framework for eHealth, the implementation of a national patient registration system, Operation Phakisa to transform public sector clinics, the assessment of existing health information systems, and the launch of MomConnect. The CSIR is considered a strategic partner of the Department of Health and has been actively involved in all of these e-health initiatives.