www.tanjent.co.uk

Commonwealth Secretariat

eHealth for Developing Countries

Following the first regional high-level dialogue on eHealth for East African member states, the second one is for West African member states and is scheduled for 10 and 11 December 2009.

The Commonwealth Secretariat's draft methodology and templates for eHealth policies and strategies were reviewed with ECSA countries Kenya, Swaziland, Tanznia and Uganda on 2 and 3 April in Kenya. Representatives of national, international agencies and foundations and regional ICT vendors were also there to contibute to the review. The drafts are now finalised and should be available from the Commonwealth Secretariat's website www.thecommonwealth.org then follow the links to the health pages.

The material is in simple Word and Excel formats so users can change the templates to meet their specifc needs for content and timescales. It includes:

• eHealth policies and strategies methodology and templates
• eHealth proposal template
• eHealth proposal spreadsheet
• eHealth situation questionnaire prepared by the ECSA eHealth Working Group.

The Commonwealth Secretariat has now published report by TanJent on  a commentarty for developing countries on the eHealth experiences of developed countries. The aim is to provide some of the insights that developing countries need to prepare viable eHealth strategies and investment plans for eHeatlh. These are extremely demading for develolping countries for several reasons, including their high incidiences of disease, low levels of healthcare resources, and their reliance on mixed healthcare economies. The commentary was submitted to the Commonewealth Conferenceon eHealth in Geneva on 18 May 2008.

The report reference isHMMG (08) 03 and is available from the Commonwealth Secreatariat's website www.thecommonwealth.org or direclty available at http://www.thecommonwealth.org/files/177214/FileName/HMM_G__08_3-E-HealthforDevelopingCountries_2_.pdf