Transcript The HealthLink Experience in South Africa

The Value of Information:
The HealthLink experience
Candy Day
HealthLink, Health Systems Trust, SA
Information AND
communication
• Inseparable
• Need effective channels of communication
• Comprehensive intervention
Dependent on:
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Technology
Training
Standards
Lowering barriers
Ensuring value
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Find out what people WANT and NEED
Stimulating awareness
Integrating into interventions
Locally relevant
Responsive to change
Value and Cost
• Difficult to evaluate
• High cost need to prove high value
• Lower cost may reach further, lower risk,
scalable
• Email vs internet/video-conferencing
• Listservs
• Access to basic resources
Types of information
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Lab results
Peer-to-peer consultation
News, publications, research results, events
Drug information, bibliographic services
Journals
Administrative and management functions
Distance learning
Rural doctors list
snake identification after bite
Improving value through:
• Open content
• Improved information retrieval technology
Rural doctors list (mailadoc)
“Just a short note to introduce ourselves to list
members. We are a group of 10 rural doctors working
in a 450 bed hospital in rural zululand. We have been
using various electronic medical resources for a while
now and are very excited about the possibilities of
mailadoc. Our strengths probably lie mostly in
medicine / infectious diseases but we would be happy
to contribute / receive information in any area,
clinical or otherwise. We are currently editing the last
edition of our hospital protocols which we have
attempted to make as evidence-based yet appropriate
as possible to the rural setting.
Looking forward to finally connecting with other rural
doctors on a regular basis!