Turkey's e-Health Activities A Country Case Study

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Over one thousand of images are reported by using the telemedicine system since January 2008. It is in the evaluation phase. Telemedicine project will be extended to the other selected state hospitals by 2008. It is planed to include elderly care and remote monitoring of the patients with chronic diseases in the telemedicine services. Geographical Information System Geographical Information System (GIS) is an application which can be integrated with the Core Health Resource Management System (CRMS) and other systems in order to process certain institutions like hospitals, village clinics and health houses on the map; to carry out geographical and non-geographical inquiries and analyses on the basis of region, province, district and unit. With this application; • Visualization of healthcare institutions’ locations and health equipment on the basis of province and district on the map is possible. • In cases where the institutions’ personnel or investment planning depends on demographic and geographic values, the geographical information system is used for analyses. • Statistics which depend on the numeric criteria like the population per doctor and the population per bed can be viewed on the screen easily. • The closest first and second degree health institutions to the point which is clicked on the screen can be displayed on the screen. • The organization’s data is displayed on the geographical and demographic data. • GIS is still in development stage and more integration actions with the other information systems of MoH are on the way. Digital Security The Technical and Scientific Research Council (TUBITAK) is the authorized responsible for providing solutions in Digital Security in Turkey. For this purpose, TUBITAK is developing the National Electronic Identity Verification System and the Smart Identity Card. These solutions will be available for both individuals and institutions. A pilot study has been started under the umbrella of Information Society Strategy Action Plan. Health and insurance sectors are determined for the first pilot implementation. The pilot implementation is taking place in Bolu province together with all family physicians, public/private healthcare institutions and pharmacies. By the end of 2008, 10,000 25
citizens will have smart cards in Bolu where all healthcare related institutes will be connected to National Electronic Authentication System. Other than this project, digital signatures are operational since 2004 and mobile signatures are operational since 2006 in Turkey by law and the integration of FMIS with these mechanisms have already been realized. E-Health Capacity Building The Turkey’s e-Health Strategy and its implementation plan are carried out under the responsibility of the Ministry of Health. The responsible Department within the Ministry is the Information Processing Department. Currently, there is a dedicated e-Health team and shared responsibilities within the team according the e-Health activities. Turkey’s e-Health project is a large scaled project which is similar to many other countries e-Health programmes and efforts. In terms of long term sustainability of a project like this requires a high level institutional organization. The establishment of the Information Processing Departments in the public agencies goes back to the 1980’s. Some public agencies established their organization laws including the Information Processing Department. Bu other will not succeed to issue in the establishment laws. Instead, some agencies preferred the establishment on the Ministerial approvals. The “e” wind which is emerged from the global initiatives such as e-Europe in the year 2000 after the Lisbon Strategy affected the Turkey’s Information and Communication Technology efforts through a more disciplined way. In several national congresses and seminars organized in the country especially leaded with one of the highest respected non-governmental organization Turkish Informatics Association9, the issue for strengthening the roles of Information Processing Departments and conversion of them as a real Information and Technology Departments reporting to the top senior management is raised. Because, the name “Information Processing” is somehow old fashioned and undermines its real functions and duties. It is perceived by some senior officials who are lack of ICT knowledge as technical support departments only dealing with some hardware and software problems. The e-Turkey initiative, e-Transformation Turkey Project and Information Society Strategy studies are carried out with the active contribution and activities of the Information Processing Departments on behalf of their agencies. As mentioned in the e-Health section above, the latest action plan in force is the Information Society Action Plan consists of 111 actions. Action 68 addresses the institutional capacity building responsible for the duties related to the e-Transformation activities. However, the goals of this action item are not realized yet. 9 Turkish Informatics Organization is established in 1971 and plays important roles in the field. 26
Page 1 and 2: Author: Nihat Yurt, M.D. Date: 1 Ju
Page 3 and 4: List of Abbreviations ATC Anatomic,
Page 5 and 6: Executive Summary When we make an o
Page 7 and 8: Country Profile Turkey is a Eurasia
Page 9 and 10: According to the results of ICT Usa
Page 11 and 12: 2) The strategic and technical impo
Page 13 and 14: As of June 2008, some statistics co
Page 15 and 16: scale of the production than the re
Page 17 and 18: The data which is sent from health
Page 19 and 20: Figure 10 Family Medicine Informati
Page 21 and 22: In addition, the procedures which s
Page 23 and 24: Saglik-Net Portal Saglik-Net Portal
Page 25: • It will be used in the fields o
Page 29 and 30: telemedicine to tele-health in the
Page 31 and 32: Annex: A Country Profile for Turkey

Turkey's e-Health Activities A Country Case Study

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