[UgaBYTES] Better health care by using ICT in medicine

[Mwathi Francis]

Story from Focus Media Online <http://focus.rw/a/>, Rwanda

Great strides are being made to improve health care services through the use
of ICT.

One of the most promising ICT development projects in RDB/IT division is the
e-health project, which involves 3 main projects: the store and forward
system, the tele-medicine video conferencing and the real time tele-medicine
system.

According to Nkubito Bakuramutsa, they have now reached the final stage of
the store and forward system, which is ready for use. “We have set up the
system in two hospitals, Ruhengeri and Kabgayi district hospitals; the two
hospitals are connected to the main national referral hospital, which is
King Faisal,” he explains. “The system works like this: a patient is
diagnosed at for example Kabgayi, where the doctor will do the necessary
tests, the results of which are sent via the system to the referral doctor
in King Faisal. The latter then examines the tests and proposes the
treatment.”

Dominique Rwakunda, the director general of Kabgayi hospital, adds that the
system is only in its first implementation phase, but there is a hope that
once it gets into full swing it will help solve many problems.

“We often transfer patients to referral hospitals such as King Faisal and
CHUK, but regularly documents get lost or patients fail to explain to
referral doctors what they have been diagnosed with and which preliminary
drugs they have been given. With the store and forward system, we send all
relevant documents and test results directly to the referral hospitals, so
doctors can examine them and treat the patients accordingly,” Rwakunda says.

Wilson Muyenzi, the e-Rwanda project manager at RDB/IT, explains that
together with Dash-s Technology Company they are currently training 25
doctors on the usage of those systems.

“Now we want to embark on the second part of the tele-medicine program,
which is video conferencing and real-time tele-medicine, where a referral
doctor can assist the doctors in remote areas with surgery, without leaving
their own hospital. We are now in the process of acquiring the necessary
equipment such as cameras and other related equipment,” Muyenzi says.

He adds, however, that a main stumbling block for the implementation of all
these projects is the slow connectivity speed, which is why they have first
to settle the issue of bandwidth which will result in a 10 Gb high speed
internet connection.

Richard Bomboma, the country director of the Swedish International
Cooperation Agency (SIDA) which is one of the main sponsors of RDB/IT, says
he is much impressed with the achievements in ICT in the country.

“It is much better than what we expected, we are very satisfied,” he
remarks. “I am aware that some challenges remain but I am sure that with
continued bilateral cooperation and support, we will overcome them.”

Nkubito Bakuramutsa, for his part, points out that they are also working
hard on capacity building so that Rwanda has the specialists to set up and
manage such systems.

“We want to invest more in capacity building, so that finally we can control
the whole system,” he says. “We are now expecting a good number of people
who have gone for postgraduate studies in ICT, so the future looks bright.”


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Francis Mwathi
Support Community Facilitator
UgaBYTES Initiatives (www.ugabytes.org)
Telecentr.org (www.telecentrecommunity.ning.com)
Tel: +256 414 370163
Mob: +256 783 010269
Skype: francis.mwathi
E-Mail: mfrancis at ugabytes.org