DOST brings health info tablets to MIMAROPA

A health information support system in a tablet was introduced in Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan (MIMAROPA) to help local government officials make informed decisions about health-related concerns in their localities.

The tablets dubbed as eHealth TABLET for Informed Decision-making (e-HATID) were turned over to the local government units at the recent Science Nation Tour:Agham na Ramdam MIMAROPA leg, a roadshow of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

The project is funded by the DOST’s Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) in partnership with Ateneo de Manila University. It aims to support LGUs with the use of an Electronic Medical Record mobile application that generates reports for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and Department of Health.

The tablets are also envisioned to ensures a more efficient patient record system that will save time and effort for both health workers and patients.

Dr. Dennis Batangan of Ateneo de Manila University said eHATID LGU features a dashboard for real-time visualization through charts and graphs of the aggregated patient information in the locality for the decision making of LGUs. It also features a mayor-doctor communication system as a channel for decision-making and sharing of health information.

When Internet connection is unavailable or slow, a health worker can use the tablet offline to input patient records and then synch the encoded information later to a government cloud facility.

The island-province of Marinduque was the first in the region to fully adopt the eHATID LGU project which targets to deploy the tablet to 450 municipal and city LGUs by the end of 2015.

The project is a spin-off from the eHealth Tablet which was piloted in 10 sites two years ago. The current eHATID integrates the PhilHealth’s outpatient benefit package and claims system in the software.

Credits to: Eden E. Estopace