National Telehealth Center Joins Elite ICT Consortium
by: Alvin Marcelo
Author: Dr. Joselito M. Montalban
The University of the Philippines Manila’s National Telehealth Center formalized its inclusion into the Philippine Community eCenter Academy during a letter-of-intent-signing ceremony held at the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City last November 26, 2007. The event marked its official affiliation with this loose alliance of institutions aimed at enhancing the capability of managers and other knowledge workers for information and communications technology kiosks called Telecenters.
Telecenters are cybercafe-like shops designed to operate as information resource and knowledge-sharing facilities in communities. Their establishment worldwide is an international movement, with the Philippine front spearheaded by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology. They are called in the country as Community e-Centers (CeC).
The National Telehealth Center or NThC, a component institute of the National Institutes of Health that deals with appropriate use of ICT in health, is one of a select number of organizations identified by the CICT as suitable partners for ensuring availability of competent CeC knowledge workers, a major goal of its Philippine CeC Roadmap for 2008-2010. Other ICT for Development and CeC-related capability-enhancement institutions taking part include the University of the Philippines Open University, Development Academy of the Philippines, Asian Institute of Journalism and Communications, Philippine Rice Research Institute, Microsoft Philippines Incorporated and Intel Technology Philippines Incorporated. They were joined in the LOI-signing by Canada’s International Development Research Institute and its social investment program, the Telecenter.org, which is providing technical and financial support, as well as by the CICT.
“We bring into this Academy 100 years of PGH, our e-learning thrust and our telemedicine experience,” Director Alvin B. Marcelo said in his message. The NThC is now three years into its web-based telemedicine project called BuddyWorks that links health professionals in various facilities all over the country to specialists in the country’s premiere state-run hospital, the Philippine General Hospital, and has recently taken on an e-learning function. Telemedicine, a term often used synonymously to Telehealth, is the provision of health care services, clinical information and education over a distance using telecommunications technology, while e-learning is remote professional learning and competence monitoring.
During the meeting that preceded the LOI-signing rites, the NThC specifically suggested two initial contributions into the Academy. In the area of service, it proposed to provide limited access to BuddyWorks by CeC managers, as the CeCs are seen as potential venues for the telemedicine project’s telementoring module. As a primarily research institution, the NThC further proposed to conduct training needs assessment of CeC knowledge workers.
NThC’s entry into the Academy capped its prior engagement with a related nationwide ICT conglomeration of a broader range of organizations with interest in CeCs, called the Philippine CeC Network. Both the Network and the Academy are projected to be launched along with the Philippine CeC Program in January 2008.
