The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO) organized the meeting of Health and Medical Informatics Focal Points in EMR in Cairo, Egypt, from 08 to 10 May 2001. The meeting was attended by seventeen countries were represented in the meeting: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Islamic Republic of Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia and Republic of Yemen. Two senior staff from WHO headquarters attended the meeting. The meeting made a number of recommendations addressed to WHO and to Member States. Based on these recommendations a plan of action was developed, which includes the following components:

A) AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL

Capacity-building 

1. Development of a model description of tasks for a Health and Medical Informatics department at the Ministry of Health and model post descriptions for key IT staff categories;

2. Development of a model health and medical informatics curriculum for use by health sciences colleges in the Region and conduct intercountry workshops for its introduction in collaboration with ministries of health and ministries of education;

3. Provision of support to health care institutions in remote areas to connect them to the Internet and link them to centres of excellence in major cities;

4. Development of data models for applications of potential benefit to a wide range of countries. This might include model electronic health records, health statistics and trend analysis, bibliographic and library databases;

5. Development of standard procedures for informatics acquisition and application in health care institutions. This may includes needs assessment tools, selection criteria and standard request for information and standard request for proposal;;

6. Provision of support for strengthen of the human resources component in ministries of health by conduct of training courses for health informatics staff, provision of training materials and awareness development of new trends in the field.

   Applications

7. Development of a model electronic health record with a minimum data set and definition and based upon open systems and international standards. The model should be viewed as multimedia web-enabled system with confidentiality, security and inter-operability features;

8. Enhancement and acceleration of the work on development and deployment of the Regional Health Statistics Database in the countries of the Region to promote electronic exchange of statistical data and to reach compatibility and uniformity of definition of health indicators;

9. Organization of an inter-country consultation specifically on telemedicine applications with a view to make use of resources and experience of countries in the Region.

10. Development or adoption of a virtual library management system and provide it and support its implementation in countries of the Region;

11. Development of Geographic Information System (GIS) strategy and build capacity to allow timely and appropriate introduction and implementation of GIS in member states.

    Collaboration

12. Convene the inter-country meeting of health informatics focal points on a regular basis (every other year) to review progress at the country level and monitor change in trends and industry;

13. Development of methods and approaches for collaboration, exchange of experience and information dissemination among information technology staff in health care institutions in the Region. This may include websites, discussion groups and listservs.

14. Development of national health informatics support plans, in collaboration with member states, as part of the Joint Programme Review Mission for the biennium 2002/2003.

15. Compilation of relevant international standards of IT and telecommunications in health, that are already approved and those that are the pipeline, and bring these to the attention of the ministries of health.

AT THE COUNTRY LEVEL  

1. Development of organizational entities and link them administratively to the highest operational level in the ministry of health to allow it to provide services and enforce systems in an even and more effective way. The position, structure, mission, objectives, tasks and budget of IT department should be well defined to avoid fragmentation and duplication of effort;

2. Development of legal frameworks and introducing laws and legislation to govern IT in health care, including health and medical informatics, health telematics and e-health;

3. Development of IT plans of action and strategies taking into consideration the needs of technical and administrative programmes;

4. Adoption of policies of strict adherence to international health and medical IT standards and telecommunications standards;

5. Allocation of regular budgetary resources for support of IT, especially for training of staff, maintenance of systems and introduction of new systems;

6. Preparation and implementation of health and medical informatics training programmes for medical students and health care professionals in collaboration between Ministries of Health and Medical Colleges;

7. Utilization of internet resources and technologies to provide health care information to both the public for promotion of healthy life style and to health care professionals for continuous education and consultation;

8. Establishment of national committees for development of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A prerequisite for GIS is the availability of digital maps of countries and their administrative boundaries and health statistics data in database format;

9. Development and maintenance of bibliographic and library databases in ministries of health to control and facilitate access to local library collections and knowledge bases worldwide. To be able to make use of the global medical knowledge available, libraries and documentation centres have to be connected to the Internet;

10. Development of a country profile of health and medical informatics and sharing it with the Regional Office and other countries.