Medical inf

eHealth: its evolution from Medical Informatics,
and its value to Health Care

Invited Presentation
to the
ICML9/CRICS7 Conference
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

by

Salah H Mandil, Ph.D.

Principal Consultant
eStrategies & eHealth
Geneva, Switzerland
&
former Director
Health Informatics & Telematics
World Health Organisation
Geneva, Switzerland

September 2005

Physical & Social Environment

Human Environment
Influences on influences
Environment on Health

Population Groups,
Communities, Families and
Management

Individuals

Promotion Diagnosis,
and Treatment &
Prevention Rehabilitation

Provision of Health Services:
Resources essential, intermediate & Utilisation
specialised

The Health Sector
 New Techniques and New Methods
 Specialisation & sub-specialisation
 New Diseases
 Empowering communities & individuals
 Costly institutions
 Costly technologies
 Emergence of a strong Private sector
 More rigorous controls
 eHealth, including changes to old "info systems"
 etc ...

Health Sector Reform,
with a heavy dose of “eHealth”

eHealth ?
 An umbrella term to refer to Health and Health Care
activities carried out with the aid of electronic methods
and tools, particularly Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT).

 The term eHealth gradually evolved with the evolution
of the applications of ICT in Health.

Medical Informatics

EDP in Health

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Early Attitudes towards
“Computing in Health/Medicine”

• Administration & Finance; Essentially
• Statistics & Epidemiology; copying the
Commercial
• Modelling (“what if?”) based
Industrial
on numerical variables; sectors
• Literature services.

with “bold” reluctance
& significant hesitation

Health Telematics
Health Informatics

Medical Informatics

EDP in Health

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Emergence of computer-assisted
Imaging & Voice processing

• Imaging
Pulled the main
– Still images;
Causes of doubt
– Dynamic images; & reluctance off the
– Colour & Shades of grey. Health/medical
• Voice sector

Health/Medical Informatics
“professional disciplines”

The Emergence of a clearer distinction
between Information & Knowledge

• “Information” almost equivalent to
citing or pointing to a source of the
knowledge sought.
• “Knowledge” expressed in all the
necessary multi-media detail.

TeleMedicine

Health Telematics
Health Informatics

Medical Informatics

EDP in Health

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

TeleMedicine - The Definition
The practice of medical care using audio,
visual and data communications.

This includes health care delivery, diagnosis,
consultation, treatment, education and the
transfer of related data.

Simple Model of a TeleMedicine Link

r
Provide Recip
i
of TeleC
are of Tel ent
eCare


r
Provide Recip
i
of TeleC
are of Tel ent
eCare
TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure
TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure

Scanner
Camera
Microscope
Derma scope
etc...


r
Provide Recip
i
of TeleC
are of Tel ent
eCare
TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure
TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure

Telecom
Infra-Structure

WITHIN A NATION or BETWEEN NATIONS


TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure
TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure

Telecom
Infra-Structure

Urban Rural
Hospital Hospital

e.g. TeleMedicine WITHIN A NATION


TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure
TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure

Telecom
Infra-Structure

ST. JOHN NAIROBI
Health Sciences Kenyatta Medical
Centre School

e.g. TeleMedicine BETWEEN NATIONS

examples
TeleMedicine Experience
in Developing Countries

TeleMedicine
Practical Experience increasing

 Ten's of examples, in developing countries, that confirm
TeleMedicine as a viable cost-effective improvement in
the equity of access to quality health care.

 TeleCare, or using telecommunications in health care
services is here to stay, grow, evolve and could change
many aspects of the conduct & management of
services.

 AFRICA, ASIA, LATIN AMERICA :an example from
each:
 Egypt, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Africa, Tunis
 Bhutan, China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan
 Argentine, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico

TeleMedicine example - South Africa

 1995/96, initial study
BETWEEN
Witts. University Hospital, Johannesburg
AND
Tintswalo Hospital, Northern Province,
ON
TeleRadiology, TelePathology & TeleConsultations

 1999Phase One for nation-wide uses:
5 Provinces, 33 sites - operations started April 2000.
TeleRadiology, TelePathology, TeleOpthalmology,
TeleUltrasound and TeleEducation.
74 more sites being developed.

TeleMedicine example - MEXICO

 16Rural Hospital, Chiapas, S.E. Mexico
AND
"20 November" Hospital, Mexico City

 Consultations between GP's and
Specialists, using still & dynamic images

 Exclusively
Satellite Links, with full
two-way Video.

TeleMedicine example - Mozambique

 BETWEEN: Beira General Hospital
(about 1000 kms North of the capital)
AND
Maputo Hospital

 TeleRadiology readings

 Telecommunication link: a mix of
satellite, terrestrial and Microwave.

+ TeleEducation
TeleMedicine

Health Telematics
Health Informatics

Medical Informatics

EDP in Health

1960 1970 1980 1990

Relationship between
TeleMedicine and TeleEducation


r
Provide Recip
i
of TeleC
are of Tel ent
eCare

TeleMedicine TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure Infra-Structure

Telecom
Infra-Structure


TeleEducation
Trainer/Educator
r
Provide Recip
i
of TeleC
are of Tel ent
Students/Trainees eCare
TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure
TeleEducation TeleEducation
TeleMedicine
Infra-Structure

Telecom
Infra-Structure


• Continuous Education
• Basic Education

Project Globe
on
Continuous Professional Development,
including Continuous Medical Education

TeleMedicine: its meaning to the
Industrially Developing Countries

 Equitable Access to services
(in some cases, "the only means")

 Improve Quality of services

 Economies in
 expanding or availing the medical services
 improving the management of the services

 Economies in providing training and
education to the staff of the health services,
especially the provision of Continuous
Professional Development (CPD) including
Continuous Medical Education (CME)

Relevance to a “typical”
developing country ?
● Pockets of fine quality medical care, and
related facilities.

● A remarkable growth in the quality, and
geographic coverage, of the Telecom services
including Wireless/Mobile.

● BUT, really poor Health Care services,
especially outside main cities: poor equity,
poor quality, and quite “expensive” to the
citizen and to the Heatlh Services.

+ TeleSurveillance
+ TeleEducation
TeleMedicine

Health Telematics
Health Informatics

Medical Informatics

EDP in Health

1960 1970 1980 1990

Traditional Health Statistics
& Surveillance

 60%-75% of a national "health information" budget goes
into a:
–health statistics, or a
–surveillance unit.

 often with a total disregard to other uses, e.g. management
information systems, and decision support systems.

 Health Statistical Reports (by country) with rare uses for
Management, and very rare mix with other countries’
health data.

 Profound Need: re-think, revamp & modernise the
statistics/surveillance units, and their methodologies.

“Data Collection” Alternatives

1) TeleSurveillance

3) “Remote Sensing” (e.g. imaging from outer space) for
detection of infected areas and delimitations of such
areas.

5) Natural by-product of other “information systems”, e.g.
Hospital MIS.

7) Mix of the above modern analytical techniques and some
traditionally selected data, for Early Warning on infections.

TeleSurveillance

the example of
"River Blindness" in West Africa
(Onchocerciasis Control Programme)

TeleSurveillance

 Statistics, Epidemiology & Surveillance:
Need for a dramatic improvement in the
cost-effectiveness of present practices, which are
the main consumers of most national “health
information” budgets;

 Onchocerciasis-like TeleSurveillance are viable
alternatives and should be promoted.

The Lessons suggest:

 Surveillance in Health can learn a lot from the Human
Genome Project and adopt some of its methodologies and
international organisation.

 Trend Analysis and Pattern Recognition, enabled through a
Global eHealth approach, could impact Health as
Bioinformatics impacted Molecular Biology at large and the
Human Genome Project in particular;

 The cost-effectiveness of eHealth/TeleSurveillance;

 Time is ripe to adopt a Global eHealth approach.

 How? and to what extent?

How?

 Global/Regional pooling of surveillance efforts;

 Global/Regional pooling of surveillance data;

 Global/Regional pooling of processing workload;

 Global/Regional posting & sharing of routine and ad hoc
surveillance results & outcomes.

 Adoption of the necessary, and largely available, Global
Standards?

 IN BRIEF, start with the equivalent of the “Human Genome
Project” for Health Systems Surveillance, and expand onto
a Global Approach to eHealth in general.

“Remote Sensing”

 Mapping the earth surface is routinely used to
accurately detect and distinguish different minerals and
products such as oil.

 Successfully used to detect water-born vectors and
certain forms of air pollutants, and to collect related
data: types, density, distribution, frequency, rate of
movement, etc...

Surveillance for Early Warning
 University of Toulouse, France: Knowledge of the
conditions, e.g. climatic conditions, that could lead to the
start of certain epidemics;

 Detection of any build-up of similar “conditions” would serve
as “Early Warning”.

 Mix of traditionally collected data, and data collected through
the above modern techniques, analysed and matched
against certain “conditions”, point to Early Warning signals
on certain infections and epidemics.

 Proved in an epic project on the breakout of Dengue Fever
in the south of Saudi Arabia in 1998; in collaboration
between the University of Toulouse, and the Public Health
authorities in Saudi Arabia.

TeleHealth

+ TeleSurveillance
+ TeleEducation
TeleMedicine

Health Telematics
Health Informatics

Medical Informatics

EDP in Health

1960 1970 1980 1990

+ eTransactions
+ eCommerce
TeleHealth

+ TeleSurveillance
+ TeleEducation
TeleMedicine

Health Telematics
Health Informatics

Medical Informatics

EDP in Health

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

eTrade and eCommerce
(eTransactions including ePrescriptions)

eHealth

+ eTransactions
+ eCommerce
TeleHealth

+ TeleSurveillance
+ TeleEducation
TeleMedicine

Health Telematics
Health Informatics

Medical Informatics

EDP in Health

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

eHealth ?
 Clinical care of the individual: TeleMedicine
 Home health care: TeleHome care
 Management of clinical care: e.g. EHR, ePrescriptions, …
 Monitor & control Public Health: TeleSurveillance

 Education of the Public: TeleCasting for Health
 Human resources development: TeleEducation

 Governance of Health Services (includes administrative
& financial transactions, and routine services, e.g. those
requiring form-filling & submission): health-related parts
of eGovernment, and eTransactions

 Commercial transactions, eCommerce in medical
commodities

 ICT Support to Research

The next technology boost to eHealth:
Sensor Technology
• Temperature
• Pressure
• Texture/feel
• Shape
• Smell
• etc…

Interesting Indicator: AMD Telemedicine
reported that its highest sales in 2004/05
were in Remote/Home Monitoring devices.

Related References
(authored or co-authored by Salah Mandil)

 Africa.dot.Edu, book sponsored by the UNU, March 2003, chapter
entitled, “eHealth in Africa”.

 Journal of TeleMedicine & eHealth, June 2002, (with Bashshur et al)
“TeleMedicine state-of-the-art: an international perspective.”.

 TAM TAM to the INTERNET, book May 1998; chapter entitled,
"TeleHealth in Africa - Status and Prospects".

 Cross-border Trade in Healthcare, book published by UNCTAD,
May 1998; chapter on "TeleHealth: What is it? and will it propel
cross-border trade in health care?"

 Journal of Medical Systems, Vol. 19, No.2, 1995, pp 195-203:
"Telematics in Health Care in Developing Countries".

 TELECOM 95 "Strategies Summit", Geneva, Oct 95,, Vol. 2,
Session 21: "TeleMedicine - the Challenge to the Telematics
Industry and to International Cooperation".

Further contact:

Salah H. Mandil
Geneva
Switzerland

tel: +41 79 425 4742

e-Mail: salah.mandil@bluewin.ch

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