A webinar on ‘Challenges in Innovations and Design of Health Care Using ICT’ took place at DGHS office in Dhaka on Thursday, organized by mPower Social Enterprises in collaboration with SPIDER and Stockholm University. The aim of this webinar session was to share knowledge and experiences on digital health between Bangladesh and African countries. And also, to highlight Bangladesh and Africa’s journey and success in digital health, so that innovators from both regions can learn from each other’s experience in designing and implementing digital health solutions.
With the participation of the health experts from both Bangladesh and Africa, Directorate of health services shared their challenges faced in healthcare digitization over the years from field level to implementation.
Dr Alain B. Labrique, Founding director of John Hopkins University Global Health Initiatives shared the experience of implementing mHealth projects in remote areas of Bangladesh as the keynote speaker. “While we were implementing mHealth in Bangladesh we were really surprised. The same country we thought would be the most challenging in adaptation of technology, turned out the most convivial to this mobile phone revolution” he said.
The chair of this webinar, Dr. Be-Nazir Ahmed, Former Director of Disease Control, Directorial General of Health Services emphasized on collaboration for ICT in health services. “Collaboration in work can help in the maximum use of resources. Because of the collaboration with multiple NGOs and INGOs providing health services, DGHS has been successful in preventing cholera outbreak in Rohingya camp in since 2017.
In the end of this session Mr. Labrique also expressed his fear for innovators to get caught up in technology rather than the problem itself. “We must come up with ways of sharing our knowledge among each other and discuss what works and what doesn’t work as far as ICT for health services are concerned to make sure that we invest in those human centric innovations are right for us.” Mr. Labrique added acknowledging this session.