BETTEReHEALTH: Human, Technological and Political factors for better coordination and support of e-health in Africa
Description
BETTEReHEALTH stands for "Better e-health for better health". It is a consortium of African and European partners who represent e-health stakeholders. BETTEReHEALTH will use a bottom-up approach to coordinate and support the utilization and further development of existing strategic partnerships on e-health deployment for better health in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs) in Africa.
Four regional hubs in the African continent will be established and based in: Tunisia for the North African hub; Ghana for the West African hub; Ethiopia for the Central-East African hub; Malawi for the Southern Africa hub. The regional hubs will involve local and national stakeholders as well as stakeholders in neighboring countries in the regions. The hubs will contribute to and provide feedback on the project’s work package activities, draw participants to all organized (online) events, be recipients of and share reports and outcomes of the project with the target audience.
The strength of BETTEReHEALTH, led by SINTEF, is the diversity of the partners involved, which will contribute to an interdisciplinary and evidence-based approach to formulating and implementing e-health policies and solutions.
Goals
To coordinate and support successful deployment of e-health for better, more accessible and efficient healthcare services in African LLMICs. Specific objectives:
- Collect evidence and map existing e-health resources.
- Address e-health related human, technical and public policy factor.
- Facilitate national e-health initiative.
- Disseminate project outcomes to inform key stakeholder.
- Promote European-African LLMICs e-health cooperation.
Method
The following methods will be used to achieve the objectives:
- Stakeholder analysis
- Registries: The registry design method will be used to design an open-access e-health solutions registry. An e-health policies registry for African LLMICs will be created based on the existing WHO Directory of e-health policies to serve as a source of information for identified best-practices on e-health implementation.
- Workshops and Focus Groups
- Multiple case methodology
- Systematic literature review
Conclusion
BETTEReHEALTH will increase the level of international cooperation in e-health, inform and strengthen end-user communities and policymakers in African countries, in making the right decisions for the successful implementation of e-health. BETTEReHEALTH will also lead to increased opportunities for the development, adaption, and use of e-health solutions by stakeholders in Africa and Europe with the overall aim of better health outcomes through higher quality and better healthcare accessibility.