Challenges in the Health Care Sector

Health has become an integral part in the world we live in today, the desire to be healthy and enjoy the various facets of life has been a cardinal feature of man’s aspirations from time immemorial. In modern times every responsible nation has acknowledged the primacy of the health of their population by including it in the rights and duties in their constitutions. With such a pride of place among the pantheon of human rights and the great advances in medical sciences in the last century one must expect that mankind would have conquered the burden of disease effectively. Unfortunately, nothing is farther from truth. Safeguarding the health of its citizens and improving the quality of their lives still remain the greatest challenge of societies all over the world. Health informatics or application of information communication tools to health care has been touted as one of the possible means to improve the utility, access, safety and application of health-care methods. The objective of behind innovation is to present a high level scan of the major challenges in the Health-care domain within the backdrop of informatics and suggest means on how to solve it step-wisely. These challenges are listed below

1. Communication between healthcare providers: One of the most important reasons patients are admitted to acute care facilities is to monitor for deterioration in their clinical condition and intervene early. Thus communication between clinicians, allied professionals and support staff is critical in providing high quality and safe patient care. Never before in human history has been communication technology ubiquitously available as is now. Yet communication problems are the most common cause of preventable death or disability in a review of 14000 hospital admissions. Literature is scarce regarding effectiveness of various communication systems for health care use. Although smartphones and other handheld devices have been suggested as potential solutions much work is yet to be done in this area. Undoubtedly this is one area where e — health professionals have their task cut out. Their unique positioning at the interface between Health and information technology gives them a unique view of the state of affairs and a decisive strategical advantage to provide solutions in the area.
2. Improving Quality while controlling costs: Healthcare expenditure has been steadily rising across the world since the beginning of the first decade of the twenty first century. In the aftermath of the recent worldwide economic meltdown renewed calls to reign in the cost of healthcare has gained broad based support all over the world. Healthcare costs have been reported to be growing rapidly to be soon capable of threatening to derail the budgetary allocations for other essential services in many countries. Ironically, clarion calls for improved patient safety and quality of medical care have also reached crescendo at the same time. Healthcare administrators, policymakers and the general public are currently debating the ways and means to reconcile the seemingly hostile factors of cost and quality. Historically, better quality healthcare has been associated with increased monetary expense. The time has come to arrest this relationship and to marry economy with quality. This might involve improving efficiency, increasing predictability, developing low cost yet highly effective medical technology and probably radically reengineering the healthcare systems. Informatics will be a powerful tool in the hands of public health administrators and medical researchers in pursuit of quality healthcare at sustainable costs.
3. Developing effective e-health applications Mobile e-Health broadly encompasses the use of mobile telecommunication and multimedia technologies as they are integrated within increasingly mobile and wireless health care delivery systems. The field broadly encompasses the use of mobile telecommunication and multimedia technologies in health care delivery. e — Health applications include the use of mobile devices in collecting community and clinical health data, delivery of healthcare information to practitioners, researchers, and patients, real-time monitoring of patient vital signs, and direct provision of care (via mobile telemedicine). e — Health has the potential to provide increased access to healthcare and health-related information (particularly for hard-to-reach populations); improved ability to diagnose and track diseases; timelier, more actionable public health information; and expanded access to ongoing medical education and training for health workers.

In conclusion corruption has been a root problem in the way health-care is delivered in many African Countries, according to reasearch done by Azuh Dominic he said as i quote “The findings show that cost of service, staff development, nonavailability of drugs and consumables and equipment inadequacy among others were positively and significantly related to corruption and diminish the delivery of healthcare services at grassroots” This discovering isn’t encouraging.