FG Inaugurates Committee for eHealth

Prof. Isaac Adewole, minister of Health, has inaugurated a steering committee to champion health and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) implementation in the country.

At the inauguration ceremony in Abuja, the minister said Nigeria’s health sector faces daunting challenges, which he said range from data collection and management, through to human resources and issues of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

He, however, said that government has intervened to address the challenges through various approaches despite limited resources, pointing out that ICT has the potential to mitigate some of the challenges when appropriately applied.

“The National eHealth strategy provides an overarching guide to harmonising and focusing ICT interventions – in health – along government priorities and towards the achievement of these priorities.

However, we must note that the eHealth strategy in itself is not the culmination of the work; but the inception of a new chapter in the process, which will now involve rallying resources towards unified implementation of this strategic plan,” the minister said.

In his speech, Adebayo Shittu, minister of Communications said: “The National eHealth Strategic Framework provides a vision and guide for alignment of current investments in technology within the health sector towards a digitalised health system that will help Nigeria achieve UHC by 2020.”