KEY RESOURCES ON ICT AND HEALTH

Reliable information and effective communication are crucial elements in individual health practices, disease monitoring and prevention, public health systems, and health care more generally. ICTs, therefore, can in many ways be vital tools in combating disease, promoting individual health and making health systems more effective and far reaching.  They can be particularly powerful in monitoring the outbreak and spread of disease, disseminating health information (including information about health-promoting and disease-preventing individual behaviors), and providing training, information and long-distance support to health care practitioners.

A particular challenge for developing countries is assuring that ICTs are effectively mobilized to improve health outcomes and combat disease among the poorest and most remote populations.  This is an area where the potential for effective use of the full range of ICTs (including radio and television) is particularly great, but where considerable risks also exist that lack of access to these information and communication tools will exacerbate social and economic disparities in health outcomes.

infoDev's work in this area is designed to provide developing country policymakers, health practitioners, international development agencies, and other key stakeholders in health promotion and disease prevention in developing countries with easy access to the lessons of experience and good practice in using ICTs effectively, sustainably and equitably in the health sector. 

improving health, connecting people:
the role of iCTs in the health sector of developing countries

ICT has the potential to impact upon almost every aspect of the health sector. In public health, information management and communication processes are pivotal, and are facilitated or limited by the available information and communication technology. In addition, beyond the formal health sector, the ability of impoverished communities to access services and engage with and demand a health sector that responds to their priorities and needs, is importantly influenced by wider information and communication processes, mediated by ICT.

To this end, infoDev commissioned in 2006 a study to investigage the role of ICT in the health sector in developing countries. The study, developed jointly with Healthlink Worldwide and two partners, ISHED and AfriAfya provides a:

• Framework paper which identifies key issues and opportunities relating to the role of ICT in health, and identifies key lessons and recommendations for action.
  
• Knowledge map that considers the current state of and major gaps in knowledge related to the role of ICT in the health sector in developing countries.
  
• Online consultation in relation to the knowledge map to tap into the experience and ideas of a broad range of practitioners
  
• Key lessons on the use of ICT in Health in developing countries