medical

Despite the very commendable effort of the Ministry of Health to reduce waiting time at public hospitals, it is still a major issue. A staff member at my company related to me that she took her grandmother to Kingston Public Hospital from 7 a.m. on a Friday for an assessment and did not leave the facility until 9 p.m.

This poses several problems, one of which obviously has to do with productivity, as an entire day off from work was required to achieve this.

The number of preventable deaths each year is staggering.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 7.8 million people die of hypertension, 5.4 million die from smoking tobacco, 3.8 million from malnutrition, 3 million from STDs, 2.5 million from overweight and obesity, 2.8 million from poor diet, 2 million from physical inactivity and 1.9 million from alcohol.

The issue of medical records was once again thrust into the spotlight with a recent Supreme Court decision which ordered that parents be given access to their baby's health records within 24 hours.

The hospital had refused to hand them over. Since then, the question is still up in the air as to who owns medical records, prompting Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton to seek an opinion from the attorney general.

Important strides have been made in health sectors worldwide to move forward with achieving a complete digital ecosystem with electronic medical records (EMR) central to this.

Jamaicans are highly suspicious of technology, especially those that require the sharing of personal information. I was recently privy to a discussion among doctors and they were of the view that there should be great concern if EMR is implemented in government health facilities as too many people would be able to access individuals' health records.

Several medical practitioners have indicated that they want to introduce electronic medical records (EMR) but they are not looking at the vast opportunities the technology can bring to modernising health care management, or even the much better linkages that EMR could have in digitising other aspects of their operations. 

Generally, we believe in looking at the bigger picture and so when a client approaches us with a need, we demonstrate to them the possibilities beyond that one objective.

Health sectors across developed and developing countries have long struggled with making improvements to infant and maternal health.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) for example, indicates that approximately 830 women die each day from preventable illnesses related to pregnancy and childbirth with 99 per cent of these being in developing countries.

Worldwide these two indices are very high. For many lower socio-economic groups the problem is access to health care services. 

The proposed National Identification System (NIDS) has been the source of contentious debate for the last few weeks.

Jamaica is actually late in the game in providing some sort of system of this type to ensure a proper database of its citizens, which will improve the country's ability to put in place effective structures and programmes that will adequately capture the needs of the population.

The United States, for example, can track and manage its welfare services through the social-security number issued to every citizen at birth and kept until death.

The recent devastating impact of natural disasters in the Caribbean and North America has underscored the dangers we face here in the region.

The region is no stranger to this as many of us has had to rebuild several times after a natural disaster.

In preparing for these disasters we usually think of the loss of our fixed assets such as cars, homes and other property, but we seldom give consideration to the possibility of the loss of important data.

The medical marijuana industry is an opportunity to invest in and increase much needed resources to education. This from Doug Halsall, CEO, Advanced Integrated Systems, (AIS), who indicated that this is why he is in full support of the development of the local medical marijuana industry.

The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) is embracing the use of technology to enhance patient care delivery which, along with several other infrastructural developments, is to propel the hospital into a first-class facility. Officials of the St Andrew-based hospital, speaking during a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the newspaper's North Street offices in Kingston last week, said improved technology is coming for the hospital to ensure that it can efficiently meet the needs to the public.