The annual Health Informatics Southern Africa Conference, to be held in Kimberley from 6 to 8 October, will focus on public healthcare and how technology can boost healthcare for the poor.
The conference previously focused primarily on the private sector.
The theme for this year`s conference is cost-effective health informatics initiatives for southern Africa. The event will be hosted by the Northern Cape Department of Health.
"This is in line with the government strategy to use technology to improve the lives of the rural poor," says Dr Sean Broomhead, chairman of the conference organising committee.
"This year, the committee intends to bring both the public and private sector together to share information on ICT services that are cost-effective and best suited to improving the lives of the poor.
"Despite the massive investment by the public sector in ICT, there are few opportunities for private and public sectors to get together to interact around health informatics issues," says Broomhead.
He says the public sector has large ICT expenditure as well as the largest challenge in terms of using technology to improve health service provision, especially in remote rural areas.
"New initiatives in this field include work being done on wireless technologies as well as Web-based patient record systems," says Broomhead.
Issues to be tackled at the conference include the use of electronic data interchange, personal digital assistants, effective means of data collection and analysis in informatics.
Around 250 delegates are expected from sub-Saharan Africa, and will represent health, education and social development.
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