Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Alunyu, Andrew Egwar
• Amiyo, Mercy Rebekah
• Nabukenya, Josephine

Titel

State of Digital Health Communication Infrastructure in LMICs: Theory, Standards and Factors Affecting Their Implementation

Ist Teil von

• Current and Future Trends in Health and Medical Informatics, p.109-134

Ort / Verlag

Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Healthcare data sharing is vital to the future of patient-centred care. However, it is challenged by weaknesses inherent in the communication infrastructure that support such data sharing. A key challenge has been pinned on the poor standardisation of digital health systems that make up the communication infrastructure thereby affecting the collection, processing, storage and transmission of health data/client’s electronic medical records. This chapter presents experiences from Uganda regards progress in standardisation. A scoping literature review informed conceptualisation of digital health standardisation to involve setting standards context, standards development process, and implementation plus compliance monitoring. These three constructs guided the exploration of Uganda’s state of digital health standardisation, conducted in four regions of the country. Whereas qualitative data collected were analysed using a thematic approach, the quantitative data was statistically analysed. Findings showed unstandardised implementations of digital health devices and applications, disparate and intermittent network connectivity with poor quality of service, limited digital health use skills, and inadequate facilitating resources. Further exploration attributed these limitations to weaknesses in the standardisation process and a lack of contextual standards to guide digital health implementations. Further works will develop a framework for fast-tracking the standardisation of the digital health communication infrastructure in low-resource health systems like Uganda.