National ICT R&D Fund Sponsors First e-health Conference by eHAP

Karachi: eHealth Association Pakistan (eHAP) organized the first international e-Health conference on January 23-24, 2009 at the Aga Khan University in Karachi. National ICT R&D Fund was the Gold Sponsor for this conference held by eHealth Association of Pakistan.

eHap is an organization with the mission to promote adoption and use of eHealth as an integral component of health services and education in Pakistan, through advocacy, evidence, access to recognized experts and resources, policy-support and capacity-building. The association has been registered as a member of International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (ISfTeH).

The objectives of this conference were to introduce & advocate eHealth as a viable & relevant option for improving public and private healthcare in Pakistan and acquaint stakeholders with the national and global efforts being made for eHealth advancement.

The conference was attended by medical experts, health care providers, HMIS managers, policy makers, faculty members, researchers and students.

National ICT R&D Fund presented two of its significant funded projects in the field of e-health namely “Remote Patient Monitoring System with Focus on Antenatal Care for Rural Population” and “Health Life Horizon: Design and Implementation of Health Level 7 (HL7) Open Source Application for e-health Services”. Ten publications were also presented in this conference by their respective PIs. The Fund had also set up its stall at the conference, where key information about the initiatives of the fund was provided to the participants of the conference. The participants showed great interest and praised the Fund’s efforts in promoting the usage of ICT in the medical field.

Dr. Qasim Sheikh, CEO National ICT R&D Fund chaired the conference session on “Innovations in e-health” and was also among the expert panel at the concluding session on “Roadmap for the future of e-health in Pakistan”.

National ICT R&D Fund was well-recognized at this platform for its consistent efforts to promote high-quality R&D work in the field of ICT for socio-economic growth in Pakistan.