Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Is this person a member of a household or
in a relationship that could have some ef-
fect on the condition, such as HIV/AIDS,
that brought him/her into the facility for
care?
be tied into whatever overall health record system
the country may already have, even if it's only a
small pilot project, and the overall health strat-
egy of the country. This last point is particularly
critical; the design of the system must reflect
the intended use, whether it be a public health/
disease surveillance system or one for assuring
the continuity of care for individuals.
Any individual ID system must answer the
following questions:
Health Records
Longitudinal collection of health information
generated by visits of an individual to a medi-
cal facility provides the knowledge needed to
enhance the quality, safety and efficiency of that
individual's health care. These records, which
can include patient demographics, problems,
diagnoses, medications, vital signs, past medi-
cal history, immunizations, laboratory data and
radiology reports. There are many significant
issues involved in designing and developing a
health records system, but the value of a system
depends upon, first, accurate identification of the
individual to whom the information belongs and
second, the ability to link records gathered over
time (and perhaps at more than one facility) to
that individual in order to show a complete his-
tory of that person's encounters with the health
care system, regardless of where or when those
encounters occurred.
The Health Records Challenge is to design
mechanisms by which health records of identifi-
able individuals can be linked within a facility or
group of facilities effectively and efficiently in
developing countries with little or no technologi-
cal infrastructure. The challenge is not to design
a health record system, but rather to determine
how technology can support the sharing of an
individual's information over time and distance.
Security and protection of personal information
are critical elements in addressing this challenge.
•
Is this person who he/she claims to be?
•
Has this person accessed health services
previously here or elsewhere in the system?
•
What services has this person received?
•
Is this person a member of a household or
in a relationship that could have some ef-
fect on the condition, such as HIV/AIDS,
that brought him/her in for healthcare?
•
In preparation for developing an individual
ID system, it will be helpful to:
•
Make an inventory of ID and health re-
cords methods already in use in your tar-
get country, including those implemented
by NGOs and other entities not within the
country's healthcare system that could be
applicable.
•
List the identity needs: short term for indi-
vidual ID, disease and disaster control and
medical statistics, or long term for keeping
healthcare records.
•
Identify the problems of melding an indi-
vidual's ID with perhaps a national or other
ID that your country may already have.
•
Identify how you might provide ID for
people in remote locations or for popula-
tions with literacy issues.
•
Find out if your country has any regional
variations in the preference for one means
of identity or another.
3.2. Short-Term Challenges
•
Find out if there already are ID methods
in your country for such things as money
transfer or micro-banking, and if there are
Designing and implementing a reliable individual
ID system could be a worthwhile short-term proj-
ect. But this cannot be done in a vacuum: it must
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