2nd eHealth Workshop, Gaborone, 30 - 31 October 2018

16 November 2018

IST-Africa 2018 included a full track on eHealth, where results from a range of projects and initiatives were shared. As a result of this, DTPS, Ministry of Transport and Communications were requested to support the organisation of the 2nd eHealth Workshop in Gaborone on 30 - 31 October 2018.

This workshop, which focused on how Open Source Technology can support Sustainable eHealth Solutions, was organised by University of Botswana eHealth Research Unit in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW), Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation (BITRI) and the Ministry of Transport and Communication (MTC). DPTS, MTC as the national IST-Africa partner provided support and was actively involved in the organising committee meetings associated with this event.

The workshop focused on highlighting trends in eHealth technology solutions across Africa and aimed to stimulate discussions around open sources solutions for healthcare. It was attended by representatives from government, academia and the private sector.

Click here to download the workshop report.

Findings from this workshop included:

- The adoption of open source software is generally low in Botswana. It is necessary to look at why this is the case and take the necessary actions to build skills and a talent pipeline

- Need to develop collaborations between academia and professional healthcare environment

- Ministry should engage more actively with Universities to get assistance to address ICT related challenges and to train nursing and medical students on the requirements in health facilities

- Need to assess how willing the Ministry of Health and Wellness is to using open source solutions