10 Jun 2013

The Ministry of Health will host the second annual national conference dubbed Health Informatics Pitso 2013 on June 12.

The conference will be held in collaboration with the University of Botswana, Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Botswana and the Botswana-UPenn Partnership.

A news release from the ministry says the aim of the conference was to bring together all stakeholders to continue discussing health informatics and its role in the health sector in Botswana.

The release also states that there will be a strong focus on creating a sustainable environment for the formal creation of a society or association led by practitioners and researchers. 

The conference will also look into progress made during the inaugural pitso last year.

In the second instalment, the release says the conference will assess and highlight progress that has been made in the development of the area with a focus on Electronic Health Records (EHRs).

It will also assess and highlight progress made in curriculum development and workforce capacity building, the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on the day to day activities of the healthcare worker, strategies and policies that govern ICT service delivery, as well as how to improve access to health information resources to the furthest areas of Botswana.

Mobility and ubiquity in healthcare systems, standardisation of technologies and procedures, data management, certification, and privacy are some of the issues that medical informatics professionals and the information and communication technology (ICT) industry is in general need of addressing in order to further promote ICT in healthcare. ENDS