Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne will be able to view all statistics and other information on Sri Lankan health services in a few weeks by punching a key in a computer placed on his table, Prof. Vajira Dissanayake said.
He was addressing a press conference at the Health Promotion Bureau (HPB) in Colombo yesterday.
He said even now all statistics and other vital information on Sri Lankan health services is available online.
“It is a baseless lie that the Health Ministry is alleged to be ignorant of the basic information on health service such as the number of state hospitals etc. Health information of schoolchildren numbering about four million is now available online.
According to Prof. Dissanayake, in the future, all state and private hospitals will be networked to speed up the availability of information on patients. Citizens will be given a Personal Health Number enabling them to visit any hospital and obtain medical treatment without taking their documents such as blood reports, medical reports etc.
Patients will have their own identification similar to the National Identity Card.
Prof. Dissanayake said there are around 600 small state hospitals and about 30 of them are connected to the eHealth system, while 300 more are to be connected within the next three to four years.
There are around 50 large state hospitals at present and 10 of them are connected to the system. The rest will be connected soon.
All maternal and child related data is available online while tabs or smart mobile phones will be given to midwives and public health nurses to feed information to the National System.
“Sri Lanka is well ahead of other countries with regard to eHealth and Sri Lanka launched it before the WHO stressed the requirement of such a system,” Prof. Dissanayake added.
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