by: Xandra Bernal
UPMASA-PGH Science Hall packs health and IT professionals
Manila, Philippines – April 8, 2010 – “Putting Health in the Hands of the People”: This was the theme of the recently concluded seminar by the National Telehealth Center entitled, “Seminar on Health Informatics”. This was the first of a series of seminars to be organized by the institution to address the increasing need of knowledge sharing on how to apply Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for Health. The community’s felt need arise since recent applications of eHealth and Telemedicine are rapidly progressing in developed countries, most especially in the United States where Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is being implemented from an Executive Order of President Barack Obama. Also, the demand for Health Informatics for Nursing Education increased demand due to the latest addition of Health Informatics course on the Philippine Nursing Curriculum as initiated by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).
The National Telehealth Center presented the standards and ethics in the practice of eHealth and Telemedicine. According to Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo, Director of the National Telehealth Center, “Without stardards, most specially in the international arena, telemedicine applications would not work. You should have the right socket in order to plug-in your application.” He also discussed various careers relating to health informatics. Dr. Alex I. Gavino, Coordinator for Telehealth Operations, discussed the latest tools and technologies for Health Informatics. He stressed out the need to use Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to focus on the importance of the software used and not on the worth of a product. FOSS also enables easier collaboration within the community of users, thus, allowing partnerships to grow around the world. Dr. Arthur G. Manzon, Lead Project Coordinator for OpenMRS, gave a presentation on the Electronic Health/Medical Records used locally and internationally. He gave emphasis on the use of the Concept Dictionary, the core of the OpenMRS system, which stores all diagnosis, tests, procedures, drugs and other general questions and potential answers for health-related forms. Ms. Alexandra Belle S. Bernal, RN, Senior Telehealth Nurse, gave a talk on the applications of eLearning tools for Health Education, Research and Practice on various settings. One example of the eLearning case studies she tackled was on the use of an out-of-the-box teleconferencing software (Skype™) to do a mentoring activity with the Community Health Workers from the provinces of Quezon and Naga, as part of the implementation of Primary Mental Health Care. Ms. Mia Angelica Alcantara-Santiago, RN, Clinical Systems Analyst of St. Luke’s Medical center, on the other hand gave a brief introduction on how Nursing Informatics is currently praciticed for the Philippine setting.
In summary, Dr. Marcelo highlighted that there is a lot of innovative tools and technologies used for the practice of eHealth and Telemedicine in the country. However, the community should be worried first on what content we want to impart and that the patient (or client) should remain central to everything. “As Health Informatics professionals, we should be the first to make sure that the technology is beneficial to them. If technology will not redound to the welfare of your patients (or clients), then it is probably inappropriate to proceed.”
