Medical practitioners learn to advance care through digital tools 

…library, and internet resources to further aid healthcare delivery

The Health Ministry in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), on Monday launched a two-day digital workshop to educate healthcare professionals on how to digitally enable healthcare delivery.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony explained that this initiative aims to improve patient experience, patient outcome and hospital management data, as well as reduce medical errors.
“In this modern era of technology, we cannot avoid using digital tools to enhance the services we are delivering. With this new system, we want to empower patients to make their appointments and receive the necessary reminders before their visit to the facility,” Anthony said.
To prevent any forms of errors, clinical audits will be introduced into the health system as well.

“Throughout the system, we have seen cases where patients were not provided with the standard of care needed. With this new environment we are building, it should help us to remove some of these areas and show people the protocols they need to follow,” Anthony said.
Dr Anthony added that this advanced surveillance system further seeks to improve the management and detection of patterns and trends in zoonotic diseases or infections spread between people and animals.
These new advances in healthcare provision through digital technology will support transformation of health coverage in far-flung areas across the Region, according to PAHO Representative to Guyana, Dr Luis Codina.
“It’s a very important time because we will discuss all the necessary areas to facilitate this new development. PAHO will continue working with the IDB to ensure the development of digital health is established,” Codina said.
Meanwhile, IDB country representative, Lorena Solòrzano-Salazar reiterated the Bank’s support towards digital health transformation within Guyana, through its partnership with the Ministry and PAHO.
Also in attendance at Monday’s launch were Advisor to the Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, Director of Infrastructure attached to Mount Sinai Health System, Jeb Weisman and Project Coordinator attached to the Ministry’s Health Sector Development Unit, Vishraj Singh.
Health library database
This digital health workshop was not the only collaboration between PAHO and the Health Ministry this week to boost the skills of medical practitioners in Guyana.
The Ministry, alongside PAHO/World Health Organisation (WHO) and the University of Guyana (UG), also initiated a five-day workshop to equip healthcare professionals with an understanding of the Virtual Health Library (VHL) Database and the InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) internet resources.
These tools aim to aid them in investigating health issues using peer reviewed and evidence-based research conducted by other researchers and medical professionals.
“If we are going to foster a new environment for research, we have to give people access to journals and we have to implement a virtual library that will allow easy access to evidence-based research,” Anthony said.
“We have lots of opportunities available to develop research agenda, but we need the right infrastructure to transition to virtual libraries; this workshop will provide those tools,” he added.