Nairobi to host eHealth conference

GOVERNMENT

By Carole Kimutai , Nairobi, Kenya 

AFRIHEALTH, the annual Healthcare conference on policy, technology and issues relating to  continental access to healthcare, will be held in Nairobi on 30 November, the organisers, AITEC Africa and the United Nations University, have confirmed.

The conference puts together top players in Africa’s Healthcare and matches them with world experts in eHealth, mHealth and healthcare information management systems. Discussions will focus on the application of ICT in  health care.

Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Kenya’s Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication, and Dr. Katherine Getao, Head of eGovernment at the Office of the President, are among senior Kenyan government officials  expected to make key presentations  in support of ICT in Healthcare.

Sustained efforts by the Ministry of Information and Communication towards improvement of national communication infrastructure and access to ICTs have yet again won Nairobi the prestigious title of host city for the conference, which attracts international VIPs, including Professor Yunkap Kwankam, Executive Director, International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) based in Switzerland, Professor Maurice Mars, Head, Department of Telehealth, University of KwaZulu-Natal & President, South African Telemedicine Association and Rainer Herzog, Head of Strategy & Business, Development mHealth and eHealth, Ericsson, Germany, among others.

“The line-up of speakers reads like a who’s who of African and global health informatics. It is good that Health Management systems,  made it to be a focus- due to the immense benefits they deliver to healthcare, but even more important is that speakers dialogue aim for a more integrated approach in healthcare delivery at national and local levels,” said Sean Moroney, Chairman of AITEC Africa.

Kenya’s Ministry of Health, major referral and private hospitals are among participants at the conference.

During the conference, the United Nations University will hold a workshop that will champion the role of Open Source healthcare information systems, lauded as an inexpensive solution for the improvement of healthcare in Africa.

Speakers at the conference include Dr. Shariq Khoja, Director AKDN eHealth Resource Centre, Aga Khan University, Kenya, who will speak on Tele-Health services and Derebe Tadesse, Quality Improvement Manager, ABT Associates, Ethiopia- with his focus on use of mobile phones in health data.

Other international speakers at the conference  include Dr Peter Drury, Director, Health and Development, Emerging Markets, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco, UK; Frank Lievens, Board Member & Secretary of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth, Belgium, Ken Nwosu, eHealth Ontario & McMaster University MSc eHealth Programme, Canada and Dr Adesina Iluyemi, eHealth Consultant to the Commonwealth Secretariat in the UK.