Commonwealth medical conference in Colombo enhances SL’s position as digital health leader
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Vinton G Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, considered one of the founding father of the Internet, addresses the conference via skype.
The Commonwealth Medical Association’s 24th Triennial Conference 2016, hosted by the Sri Lanka Medical Association and the Health Informatics Society of Sri Lank with the support of the Government of Sri Lanka, with the participation of President Mathripala Sirisena and the Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, Rajitha Senaratne, in Colombo from October 14 to 16 October was a resounding success. It helped to further consolidate Sri Lanka’s position as a leader in Digital Health.
Here are some quotes from prominent personalities following the conference:
“I thought the conference and all the arrangements were just superb. I have gotten very good feedback on the content. I thought the emphasis on technology and digital approaches were right on target. I met the Deputy Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Malcolm Johnson yesterday and told him how impressed I was with the work you are doing and will now lead across the Commonwealth”… Deodat Maharaj, Deputy Secretary General of the Commonwealth via email after his return to the UK.
“What a pleasure and privilege to work with you on what the French would call a “success fou!”…When I launched the UN Digital Health Initiative in 2008 we knew we were about a decade ahead of our time. But it is in Colombo that the platform for truly global digital health via the Commonwealth will come to be seen as pivotal.”… Denis Gilhooly, Founder and Executive Director, Mobile Alliance on Pandemics (MAP) Action 2030, Global He@lth 2030 Innovation Task Force [www.globalhealth2030.org] via email after his return to the UK.
Today we live in an era where innovation is happening faster than ever before. Healthcare too is feeling the effects of that transformation.
Mydoctor.lk a Sri Lankan digital healthcare company, exhibiting at the conference, claimed that they have over 50,000 customers on their platform.
If that is an indication to go by, then digital health in Sri Lanka is ready for a boom. One of the observations that everyone made was the eagerness of the participants – doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and laboratory technicians to spend time experiencing the model digital hospital that was on display at the conference venue. The digital hospital was sponsored by Microsoft, the global giant. The Microsoft team at the conference was led by none other than Callum Bir, the Asia Pacific Vice President for Health at Microsoft.
Participants were treated to talks by a wide array of top quality speakers.
Among them was Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google who is considered one of the founding father of the Internet. He talked to the conference via skype from his home in New York at 11pm EST.
His knowledge in both ICT and Medicine astounded all those listening to him.
Among over 120 other foreign and local speakers were Laureate Professor Alan Lopez AC from the University of Melbourne, Australia who has been named among the top 10 most influential academics worldwide, and Sir Michael Marmot, the President of the World Medical Association.
The way forward for Digital Health implementation across the commonwealth, however, lies in the open source movement. The World Health Organsation has adopted dHIS2 and OpenMRS as two open source platforms for digital health implementation. There were two workshops one on dHIS2 and the other on OpenMRS at the conference. They were led by Prof. Jørn Braa of the University of Oslo, Norway the founder of dHIS2; and Dr. Paul Biondich, Director of Global Health Informatics, Regenstrief Institute, USA and Co-Founder OpenMRS. They pledged their support for the Commonwealth Digital Health Network (CDHN) proposed by Sri Lanka as the flagship project of the Commonwealth Medical Association for 2016 to 2019.
The vision of CDHN is to be the thought leader for Digital Health in the Commonwealth. The mission of CDHN is to build a network of professionals in the Commonwealth who can uplift the health sector by supporting the development of digital health infrastructure and human resource by fostering multi-sector collaboration and public-private partnerships.
The CDHN aims to enhance digital health leadership among National Medical Associations of Commonwealth countries; enhance digital health leadership among member associations of the Commonwealth Health Professionals Alliance; strengthen the country’s institutional capacity to utilize health information for decision-making (information for action) at all levels of the health system; support the efficiency of investments by governments and development partners to strengthen the country health information system; support greater private public partnership in development and deployment of health information systems; promote innovation and commercialisation of ICT solutions for health promotion and health care; promote open source governance in health sector to maximize the benefits of ICT penetration; strengthen monitoring and evaluation (of Sustainable Development Goals) by supporting measurement and accountability through ICT; promote peer assistance and knowledge exchange through networking; promote health information standards and interoperability within and across countries of Commonwealth; providing digital health resource and technical assistance to Commonwealth countries towards the implementation of national eHealth infrastructure; provide a platform for knowledge-sharing, dissemination and peer-assisted learning to support integration of digital health and health informatics in the Commonwealth; expand linkages between public and private sectors, national health departments (ministries of health), national medical associations and national and international development partners; monitor and evaluate impacts and adoption of digital health, health open source and standards within the Commonwealth; and establish an annual Digital Health Awards scheme titled ‘Commonwealth Digital Health Awards’.
The first activity in the CDHN was the first ever Commonwealth Digital Health Awards which was held on 15 October 2016 at the Commonwealth Night at Cinnamon Grand where awards were made to the best Digital Health solutions under 12 categories – Application of eHealth to Reach SDGs; Application of ICT to Fight NCDs; Clinical Informatics; Digital Health Innovation; Health Informatics Capacity Building; Innovative Application of ICT for Measurement and Accountability in Health; mHealth for LMICs; Nursing Informatics; Promoting eHealth Among GPs; Public Health Informatics; Sustainable eHealth Implementation/Solutions; and Tele-care for LMICs.
In conclusion therefore, Denis Galhooly’s assertion that the platform for truly global digital health via the Commonwealth was laid in Colombo last week appears to be correct.
(The writer is the President, Commonwealth Medical Association; Past President (2012), Sri Lanka Medical Association; the President, Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka and a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka.
He can be contacted via
vajirahwd@hotmail.com).