Proper health information coming

The team from Chile
The team from Chile

Dominica is expected to experience greater efficiency in health information in the next several weeks.

This will be made possible by a World Bank-funded project comprising a three man and one woman Biomedical Informatics Practitioners (BIPs) team from the professional institute Duoc UC.

Pedro Vidal (Sub Director of Management and Technology area, school health), Darwin Morales (Biomedical Engineer and teacher of Biomedical Informatics), Pablo Rivas and Paulette M. Kohler (On Proffesional Internship of Biomedical Informatics) are in Dominica on a six-month project and will focus on three modules: health resource, data base for the Central Medical Store and mental health.

Public Health Specialist in the Ministry of Health, Dave Laudat in an interview with DNO said when the modules are completed, there will be a significant improvement of the overall delivery in the health sector.

“For efficiency in the health system, record is very important,” Laudat said. “For example you deal with the medical store, they would be able to look at stock able to determine whatever they have in stock, and what it is that is needed for ordering … so instead of going through paperwork, the electronic system you will be able to pull out that data of how many antibiotics we have, when is it going to be expired, at what time do we need to be ordering, so greater efficiency.”

He said the mental health department has been experiencing very poor daily recordings but the modules will be seeking to eliminate that.

“In mental health there has been very poor recording of what is being done,” he noted. “So a patient is seen at any point, their information will be recorded on the web base and if that patient shows up anywhere in Dominica, the health professional reviewing that patient can pull that persons record and see what has been the trend. And that will give them a clearer picture of the history of the patient and so the history will determine the course of treatment that is required at the time.”

Another area being covered by the project is health resource where one can access via information technology, information on health professionals, the location, the type of equipment, the type of services that is available.

“So any where you are, for example in the Portsmouth area, you should be able to know who are the consultants there, what are the services provided, at what location can you go,” Laudat explained. “So you can well imagine in a tourist base community where ever he or she is in the community they should be able to log in and determine what are the services and resources in that specific location”.

The team said at the end of the project there will be a web-based system with proper data recording for mental health and health resources for medical stores will be accessible.

The total project is estimated about US$85,000 for the six months that the team is based at the Princess Margaret Hospital.

The project was spearheaded by the national epidemiologist, Dr. Paul Ricketts.

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9 Comments

  1. Pedro Vidal
    January 6, 2018

    I miss Dominica Island
    Dominica moving in right direction. :-D

  2. August 26, 2013

    That’s Good News.Blessings.

  3. Oh my!
    August 26, 2013

    Well done Dr. Ricketts

  4. Ma ka
    August 26, 2013

    nos alegramos …. que todo salga muy bien :-D

  5. Morihei Ueshiba
    August 26, 2013

    Time we dump Venezuela.

  6. ahms
    August 26, 2013

    Dominica moving in right direction. :-D

  7. Amy
    August 26, 2013

    Well done to the Chilean volunteer team!
    The partnerships between health practitioners in Dominica and International collaborators is great news for the health information system in Dominica. Keep up the great work :)

  8. colleague
    August 26, 2013

    It was about time!!!!!!

  9. health worker
    August 26, 2013

    We are welcoming the news!

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