eHealth and Telemedicine Services in the East African Community
East African Community (EAC) Regional eHealth and Telemedicine services are an important goal being pursued by the countries in the region. This is a deliberate strategy that features prominently in all the member countries individual long term sustainable development goals (SDG). Bearing in mind the competing demands on the limited resources at the authorities’ disposal, this is a strategy that makes a lot of sense.
There is almost universal consensus among health professionals, policy makers and service users on the criticality of efficient and high-quality health information technologies in transforming healthcare delivery across the board. This is true in the developed north but even more critical in the emerging economies of the south. This is the reason we have decided to start our focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and specifically, countries of the East African Community namely Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan. This is a region with a population of almost 170 million people.
AfyaRepo and the region: On the same page
AfyaRepo’s mission is to deliver a versatile application that can be used by all. We see the almost universal penetration of mobile telephony as providing the perfect platform to establish this transformative service. This is further complemented by the quite remarkable efforts of the governments in the region in investing heavily in broadband services.
When the second East African Community (EAC) Regional eHealth and Telemedicine Ministerial Conference concluded in Kigali, Rwanda in mid-May 2018, one of the resolutions was to “conduct an EAC regional e-Health readiness assessment incorporating aspects of systems interoperability, costs and benefits of investing in e-Health by 30th December 2019″. The exercise is to be led by the East African Science and Technology Commission (EASTECO).
We at AfyaRepo aim to play our full part in delivering this ambition,