The Zambian Ministry of Technology and Science and the Zambian Ministry of Health have begun the rollout of the nation’s digital health systems project in hospitals across the country, with hopes of enhancing service delivery, digitising health services, and “safeguarding the supply of medicines”.
Felix Mutati, minister for technology and science, highlighted the benefits of the project for improving access to healthcare services, saying that the rollout will enable hospitals to offer services using digital tools “to reach as many people as possible”.
Mutati also pointed to the Track and Trace programme for medicines, which uses technology to monitor the supply chain “from the point of procurement to consumption by patients”, adding that “pilferage of drugs will soon be a thing of the past”.
In the same update, health minister Elijah Muchima called for technology courses to be incorporated into nurse training. Since technology is now “an integral part of health delivery”, he commented, it is essential that nurses need to be able to utilise “gadgets” as part of their role delivering care.
In wider news on digital transformation in hospitals, three hospitals in Estonia have announced a new pilot which will see the introduction of digital mental health screenings and assessments for patients. The pilot is hoped to help “standardise and expedite care for individuals with mental illness”, transferring admission screenings previously conducted using paper and PDF files to Proem’s digital version of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.).
And elsewhere, Jordan-based Presight, combining big data, analytics and AI to create positive impacts across sectors and industries, has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract by Jordan’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship, with focus to “set the pace of digital transformation in the country’s healthcare sector”.
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