Health Minister says evaluation to follow

AS the government continues on its thrust to modernise the public health sector, Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony has said that its call for proposals for establishing an Electronic Medical Health Record system will soon close and will subsequently be evaluated.
The Minister made these remarks during a recent interview on the Dr Randy Persaud Show, where he noted that this is a transformative move to take Guyana’s paper-based system into a modern and digitised one.

He noted that a decision was taken to digitise all records and with the assistance of Mount Sinai; the Ministry has drafted terms of reference for the system which will see total integration of people’s medical records.

Against this backdrop, he revealed that there is currently an ongoing call for proposals which is expected to close in the next two to three weeks.
“We have put out a call for proposals from companies that will probably close in the next two to three weeks and once that close, there’s going to be an evaluation committee that will evaluate this and we will determine who will be that vendor,” he said.

The project, he noted, is currently funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) by a US$97 Million loan, which contains funding for the electronic health records system to be developed along with the construction of three hospitals.

Meanwhile, he said that when this system is fully up and running, people would be able to track their records with an app on their cell phones. He indicated that as the system matures, they would then be able to make appointments from their phones as well.

Just months ago, the National Assembly passed the Data Protection Bill, which deals with data confidentiality.
Prior to the bill’s passage, the health minister told members of the media that the data architecture is necessary as the government moves in the direction of introducing electronic health records.

That bill helps to regulate the collection, storage, processing, use and dissemination of personal data.
In December 2022, Guyana signed a US$97 million loan with the IDB to strengthen health services here.