A regional technical consultative meeting on eHealth data standardization and interoperability was organized at the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean in Cairo, Egypt, from 24 to 26 June 2013.
The objectives of the meeting were to:
- highlight the key considerations in developing a national eHealth strategy, and illustrate how diverse countries can successfully implement eHealth going forward;
- conduct a technical consultation to provide a contribution from Member States of the Eastern Mediterranean Region covering both health medical and health technical domains towards the goal of developing of a handbook for the implementation of eHealth standards;
- contextualize the recommendations of the Regional eHealth taskforce and discuss the WHO regional eHealth initiative for establishing dedicated, reliable, and operational national health networks (HealthNet), the practical steps and involved projects within the national context.
A total of 40 experts in eHealth or health informatics, as well as expertise in HIV, TB, malaria, maternal, newborn and child health and diabetes, representing 10 countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, occupied Palestinian territory, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen), ITU, WHO Regional Office and headquarters participated in the meeting. Member States shared successes as well as addressed the main barriers in their country context for full adoption of interoperability standards. The barriers included lack of policy frameworks, limited participation in standards development, and inadequate qualified workforce and finances for full adoption of standards at subnational level.