Nairobi is set to host the Afrihealth conference, scheduled for 30th November to 1st December. One of Kenya's lead ICT activist and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information & Communications, Dr Bitange Ndemo, has confirmed that he will be making the opening speech to champion the case for adoption of effective telemedicine and eHealth in Africa.
The conference is expected to assemble top players in Africa's healthcare sector and world top international experts in eHealth, mHealth and healthcare information management systems, who will discuss latest applications and advances in healthcare technology.
International VIPs and industry leaders in telemedicine and healthcare informatics, including Professor Yunkap Kwankam, Executive Director from the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) based in Switzerland, Professor Maurice Mars, Head, Department of Telehealth at the University of KwaZulu-Natal & President, South African Telemedicine Association and Rainer Herzog, Head of Strategy & Business, Development mHealth & eHealth, Ericsson, Germany, will attend the two-day conference at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC).

At the event, Dr Ndemo will be joined by Dr Katherine Getao, Head of eGovernment from the Office of the President, and a constellation of senior officials from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Public Health & Sanitation and major hospitals.

According to communication dispatched from Dr Getao's office, the eGovernment boss will use the conference to advance a call for an "integrated approach in healthcare delivery at national and local levels", in line with her directorate's vision for devolved digital government services. "Manual, un-integrated medical records increase the risk of error, raise the cost of medical care for patients, and reduce the timeliness of care. It is therefore essential that the issue of both automating and integrating medical records must come to the forefront of discussions about healthcare," said Dr Getao.

In conjunction with the United Nations University (UNU), AfriHealth will host a workshop to advance the debate for Open Source Healthcare information systems, which have been billed to be more affordable and effective to hospitals that cannot afford proprietary hospital information management systems.

The workshop will be led by Nurhizam Safie of the UNU's International Institute of Global Health (UNUIIGH), who says: "achievement of universal access of healthcare will only be possible with adoption of effective ICTs in healthcare."

Dr Ndemo, who will open the conference, has been on the forefront in the push for development of ICTs in Kenya. "Making best use of the capacity that we now have to improve access to healthcare is government's priority. We have to accelerate the adoption of telemedicine and other forms ICTs in healthcare," says Dr Ndemo.