THERE is a type of progress that rarely makes dramatic headlines but that ultimately determines whether ambitious plans succeed or stall: workforce development.
The recent certificate luncheon for the first graduating class of the Digital Health Training Institute (DHTI) is one of those more muted, but no less important, accomplishments, and it deserves more attention than one ceremony normally provides.
The 15 graduates completed 17 training modules and a rigorous two-part evaluation consisting of a written exam and a live practical assessment. They will now be joining the Ministry of Health as Digital Health Specialists to support the national Electronic Health Record (EHR) system and the broader digital infrastructure the Ministry has been developing.
That is a small number in absolute terms. But it’s a symbol of something bigger: the first tangible outcome of a partnership designed to address one of the most stubborn bottlenecks in modernizing the health sector, not the technology itself, but the people required to operate it.
Guyana’s dream of digitizing its health records is not new. Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony mentioned that the vision dates back to the early 2000s when international consultants first looked at the possibility.
What has changed in the last few years is the resourcing and the political will behind the effort. The Ministry awarded a contract to UK-based firm RioMed to develop a National Electronic Health Record System, adapted to the context of Guyana, and partially financed through the Inter-American Development Bank’s Healthcare Network Strengthening Programme.
The system was introduced at the Festival City Polyclinic in January, with full implementation at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) expected later this year before being rolled out nationwide.
But software and contracts, for all the money behind them, don’t run themselves. Guyana’s own officials have acknowledged that a common feature of global health-technology projects is that systems are often procured faster than the local expertise needed to operate, troubleshoot and sustain them.
It’s one thing to have an EHR platform installed; it’s another to have the technicians in every facility to manage user access, fix connectivity issues, protect data integrity and train the boots-on-the-ground clinical staff. That gap is precisely what the DHTI was set up to fill.
The Institute is a product of a partnership between the Ministry of Health, New York’s Mount Sinai Health System and the Greater Guyana Initiative (GGI), a commitment by the Stabroek Block co-venturers, ExxonMobil Guyana, Hess and CNOOC Petroleum, to build local capacity outside of the oil and gas sector. GGI has contributed approximately US$5.2 million to the Institute over three years. The Institute provides free training both in-person and online independently, enabling people from across the country, and not just Georgetown, to get involved.
Mount Sinai officials have said the goal is not just to teach technical skills but to cultivate a generation of leaders who can steer the health system through its digital transition with an ambition to train more than 250 digital health professionals in the programme’s first three years in areas like user support, health IT, data science and digital systems management.
It is important that the Institute is nationally free and open. Geography has long mapped Guyana’s health inequities, with hinterland and rural health facilities historically underserved relative to Georgetown.
A digital health workforce that is only concentrated in the capital, would risk replicating the very disparities that the EHR system is meant to help remedy through better data sharing, remote consultation support and more consistent record-keeping across regions.
Training capacity that fans out to other areas is a meaningful, if easily overlooked, protection against that outcome.
It is worth taking seriously Dr Anthony’s framing of the initiative. “If we don’t have the people to take us there, we train people who can give us the technical support”. It is a simple formulation, but one that too many health systems have had to learn the hard way. Electronic health records, telemedicine platforms, AI-assisted diagnostic imaging tools, all can improve care only if there are trained professionals making sure they function reliably, securely and equitably.
Guyana has about 20 training programmes for the health care professions, and the fact that there is a dedicated digital health track shows that this is now a core clinical support function and not just an IT peripheral issue.
Of course, there are still open questions, which the graduation alone cannot answer. Whether these Digital Health Specialists will have the institutional support, career pathways and continued professional development to continue to be effective and stay in Guyana rather than look for opportunities abroad is something only time, and the Ministry’s continued investment will tell.
Technical glitches during the public launch demonstration of the EHR system serve as a reminder that digital transformation of this scale is rarely smooth, and that a trained troubleshooting workforce is not a luxury, but a necessity.
However, the graduation of this first cohort remains a real milestone. It suggests that Guyana’s digital health strategy is being built on more than procurement contracts and international partnerships; it’s being built on the deliberate cultivation of local talent that can keep the system running long after the ribbon-cutting ceremonies are over.
This is the kind of groundwork that rarely makes headlines on its own but without it, none of the more visible accomplishments to follow would be possible.