What are the factors affecting the advancement of the field of health informatics in the Philippines?

We could name a lot of factors affecting the advancement of health informatics in the Philippines, true to its archipelagic geography, reaching all the communities in all the 7,107 is a true feat. However, with this age of technology and modernisation, 4720 geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas, which comprises of more than have of all the 1494 municipalities have communities that are hard to reach and some are still unserved or underserved in terms of health care, according to the GIDA profiles of 2010 from the DOH.This factor alone affects the advancement of technology to these areas. These areas are lacking the proper or even the minimum infrastructure for information and communication technologies. According to the latest sitio electrification report, there are still 15974 sitios that have no electricity. Electric nowadays is no longer just a luxury, it is a need. Not only that GIDAs are difficult to travel to, because of difficulties of reaching them physically, it is also difficult to reach the even over cellphone. There is a problem of connecting the islands even wirelessly, internet signals are poor to none and most often than GIDAs are also mobile phone signal unreachable.

There a lot of good solutions for our health care situation now a days, doctorless communities can do Telemedicine, Rooms of paper health files can be managed through Electronic Medical Records, poor health compliance can be managed by information services, however these solutions still would not fit in all communities in the Philippines. The infrastructures like roads, safe transportation, electricity and communication technologies are needed. Infrastructure require so much investment to make systems work in our areas considering that we are typhoon-prone and with geographically isolated islands and technologies such as cellphone and internet connectivity are from the private sector, which means it's business. Governance and leadership to spearhead and sustain these changes are also issues.

Another factor that I think that will ultimately affect the advancement is the capacity of the users to technology, based on the 2005 Information and Communications Technology (ICT) indices, Philippine Ranked poorly on eReadiness 51/65. A lot may have happened in 9 years, with all the advancement that happened. The ICT Development Index (IDI) for the years 2011 and 2012. for 157 countries. The IDI is a composite index which combines 11 indicators into one measure that serves to monitor and compare developments in ICT across countries.  In 2012, the Philippines global rank in IDI was 98. This is the same rank it achieved in 2011. Despite the increase in its IDI from 3.14 in 2011 to 3.34 in 2012, the Philippines did not improve its ranking. (NSCB) IDI also measures capability or skills on using ICT, our rank may be a manifestation of our readiness to ICT.

Citation:


June 30, 2014 Sitio Electrification Program Status from the National Electrification CouncilGIDA Profiles from the DOH 2010http://www.nscb.gov.ph/factsheet/pdf06/fs11_06.asp – National Statistics Coordination Boardhttp://www.nscb.gov.ph/sexystats/2014/SS20140207_ict.asp#sthash.bWrxbSRI.dpuf