Challenges and hurdles to implement e health in developing countries

Challenges and hurdles to implement eHealth in developing countries
Mandirola Brieux HF.a, Bhuiyan Masud JH. b, Kumar Meher S.c, Kumar V. c Portilla F. d, Indarte S.e,
Luna D.a, Otero C. a, Otero P.a, González Bernaldo de Quirós F.a
a
Hospital Italiano, Buenos Aires, Argentina
b
UNICEF, Bangladesh
c
All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, India
d
HL7 Colombia, Bogota, Colombia
e
SUEIIDISS, Montevideo, Uruguay
Abstract
Health informatics has the potential to show improve-
ments in security and quality of patient's care, but its
spread has some differences between developed and de-
veloping countries. Related to this, the objective of this
study is to know which are the challenges and hurdles to
improve eHealth in developing countries. We surveyed
experts to evaluate their opinion about 5 general ques-
tions: economic support by Government for eHealth,
Government education or training projects in the field,
issues related to cultural or educational problems for
the implementation of eHealth, policies in terminology
or messaging standards and eHealth status policies for
long periods. The respondents answered in affirmatively
in these proportions: 1.Economic support policies 58 %,
2.Training policies 25 %, 3. Cultural and educational
problems 95 %, 4.Standars policies, 38 %, 5.Policies for
long periods, 50 % Conclusion: Our survey has shown
that the important problems that need to be addressed in
order to implement e-Health in developing countries are
cultural and educational, in second term economic re-
sources and in third term Policies for long periods.
Keywords:
Computersystem, eHealth, Medical Informatics, Cultural,
Educational.
Introduction
E-health is the transfer of health resources and health
care by electronic means. It encompasses three main ar-
eas: The delivery of health information, for health pro-
fessionals and health consumers, through the Internet
and telecommunications. Using the power of IT and e-
commerce to improve public health services, e.g.
through the education and training of health workers. (1)
E-Health has a great importance in the management of
health care services; there is no doubt about the ad-
vantages of information technology applied to health. (2)
, but in most developing countries there are serious diffi-
culties for its effective implementation. (3) Information
technology may allow significant improvements in vari-
ous aspects and have the potential to benefit developed
and developing countries. The World Health Organiza-
tion (WHO) identified the use of eHealth as a priority
skill development of human resources in health (Human
resources in eHealth requires people with knowledge in
medical informatics, standard terminology ICD-10,
SNOMED and messaging HL7 standards.), furthermore,
is increasingly recognized as a crucial for improving
health systems to achieve the WHO Millennium Devel-
opment Goals.(4)
Poor strategic planning and lack of international stand-
ards consume government budgets without reaching
good result. (5). Begin developing systems without hav-
ing defined the framework to develop implementations
might fall into serious common mistakes. Without first
identifying standards policies, network connectivity and
Internet access, master files and unique identifiers it
could lead us to a waste of time and resources. Even ex-
perience and resources for early implementation projects
in developed countries are available, in many developing
countries there are barriers and difficulties to access to
these resources.
eHealth care is a challenge that all countries face today,
irrespectively if they are developed or developing na-
tions (4). Some aspects threaten systems implementation
in the health sector involve economic resources (6), in-
come disparities, exorbitant costs of usage fees, and
even excessively costs for rudimentary health infor-
mation system (7); human trained resources (8); lack of
governmental policies that address a well-defined health
system that incorporates eHealth (9); cultural aspects
(10) and some resistance to use computers for health
care process; also standards policies that have the poten-
tial to play a major role in the systems interoperability,
ensuring standards, generating guidelines and introduc-
ing essential policies based on effective and efficient
evidence could be necessary (11).

The aim of this work is to identify the main challenges
and hurdles for eHealth development in developing
countries in Asia and South- America.
Materials and Methods
In order to collect data about challenges and hurdles for
eHealth implementations, we conducted a survey. A
short semi structured survey and data was collected for
one physician trained in the field with special care to ask
respondents to answer about their spontaneous percep-
tion or personal knowledge. Respondents were keeping
confidential
Setting: Data collection were carried out among those
attending INFOLAC 2014 the Latin American Confer-
ence on Medical Informatics organized by the Uruguay-
an Society of Health Informatics in Montevideo Uru-
guay from 16th to17th October 2014 (12) and APAMI
2014, Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics
Conference organized by the Indian Association for
Medical Informatics (IAMI) in New Delhi, India from
30th Oct to 2nd November 2014 (13).
Design: The design of the study is a cross-sectional de-
scriptive study
Sampling strategies: Within the attendees, consecutive
convenience sample were performed to attendees until
complete 3 participants for each country participating in
the events.
The number proposed for this study was 60 surveys in
total.
Inclusion criteria:
Individuals carrying out activities in the field of medical
informatics in their country attending to INFOLAC 2014
and APAMI 2014.
Exclusion criteria:
Those who cannot answer more of two questions will be
excluded.
Attendees will be able to add comments and suggestions
which will be used in future studies.
To determine which are the obstacles to implement
Health in developing countries, we first identify the el-
ements necessary to develop eHealth according to other
studies, mainly in developing countries (14), these vari-
ables are: 1) Economic support by the government for
eHealth, 2) eHealth training, 3) Cultural or education-
al problems for implementation of eHealth, 4) Stand-
ards policy in terminology or messaging, 5) Polices in
eHealth.
Questions for INFOLAC 2014 were made in Spanish
and in English for APAMI 2014.
The questions of the anonymous survey we made in the
survey were:
1. Is there any economic support by Government
for eHealth?
2. Does Government organize eHealth courses or
training?
3. Do you consider that there are cultural or educa-
tional problems for the implementation of
eHealth?
4. Does your country have any standards policy in
terminology or messaging in eHealth?
5. Does your country have eHealth status policies
for long periods?
Results
All respondents agree to participate in the studied. Per-
sonal information was keep confidential. From the 60
proposed surveys, 27 from South America and 33 from
Asia. 4 surveys were excluded due to not fit the inclu-
sion criteria.
The result of the survey showed the following:
1. “Is there any economic support by Government for
eHealth?” Answer was yes in South America in the 33%
of the times (table 1 and figure 1) and in Asia 79% (table
2 and figure 2). The results for positive answer in all
countries were 58 % (table 3 and figure 3).
2. “Does Government organize eHealth courses or train-
ing?” Answers were yes in South America in the 15%
(table 1 and figure 1) and in Asia was 33% (table 2, fig-
ure 2). The results for yes in all countries were 25 % (ta-
ble 3 and figure 3).
3. For the question: “Do you consider that there are cul-
tural or educational problems for the implementation of
eHealth?” All the answer in South America was yes (ta-
ble 1 and figure 1) and 91%, in Asia (table 2 and figure
2). Considering all countries yes was 95 % (table 3 and
figure 3).
4. About if: “Does your country have any standards pol-
icy in terminology or messaging in eHealth?” Answer
yes in South America was 33% (table 1 and figure 1) In
Asia yes was 42 %, (table 2 and figure 2). The results for
positive answer in all countries were 38 % (table 3, fig-
ure 3).
5. “Does your country have eHealth status policies for
long periods?” Answer yes for this question in South
America was 41% (table 1, figure 1) and 58%, in Asia
(table 2 and figure 2). The results for all countries was
50 % (table 3, figure 3).
Table 1. South America respondents

Figure 1 South America respondents
Table 2 Asia respondents
Figure 2 Asia respondents
Table3 All respondents
Figure 3 all respondents
Table 4 All respondents. Comparison by region in %
Figure 4 All respondents. Comparison by region
Results shown in both regions were very similar about
the role of the states in relation to national policies for
long live projects, standards policies, cultural issues and
education for eHealth. The role of state-related to train-
ing and economic support in eHealth was perceived dif-
ferent in the analyzed regions, being more intense in
Asia than in South America. (Table 4 and Figure 4).
Discussion
This is a preliminary survey to get an overview of the
situation in our region and pave the way for more com-
plex studies.
Training of human resources in eHealth is critical, be-
cause we think it is one of the limiting steps of high im-
pact, not only from a technical standpoint, but as a
change management tool.
Is interesting to note that participants agree that eHealth
development will require more universal eHealth in-
teroperability standards, and strategies to overcome
technical infrastructure barriers and address privacy, se-
curity, and other legal requirements (15), we should take
advantage of the lessons learned in developed countries
in order to optimize the strategies to achieve this goals.
About regulatory legal and policy framework, is diffi-
cult, in most of our countries to find clear policies and
coordination between state or governmental agencies
and eHealth initiatives. This is a huge obstacle to im-
plement eHealth in developing countries.
Instability in politics issues make really difficult to find
policies governance for long-term projects. Govern-
ments want to centralized systems instead of dictating
long term policies that enable the local developers to
interoperoperate with other regional developments
through clear policies standards. In many of our coun-
tries there are no state policies, they often change the

government and projects fall and are changed by others.
Developing policies eHealth requires long-term political
times exceeding consensus and projects.(16)
One of the limitations of this study is the sample. We
Collected the data in only two events in South America
during INFOLAC 2014 conference and during APAMI
2014, it could be necessary extend the coverage of the
sample for next studies. Even so, our results are con-
sistent with the work of Lacroix A and Col that report
that one of the main problem has to do with the educa-
tional training.(17).
Conclusion
E-health is the promising hope for achieve better health
for all. The present study suggested a huge gap in cultur-
al and educational issues regarding to eHealth. We also
must take measure for long-term eHealth projects ac-
cording with our results. It is very important to consider
interoperability and standards in eHealth as well. We
have to work hard to solve these obstacles presented for
its use to achieve health for all, and don’t settle for noth-
ing less.
Acknowledgments
Rachel Leidi who helped in the translation and correc-
tion of this work.
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Address for correspondence
humberto.mandirola@hospitalitaliano.org.ar

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