Proposals for a Sudan eHealth strategy

At present, the Sudan health sector, led by the FMoH and the State Ministries of Health, is in the middle of a major, ongoing reform of the managerial technical and clinical aspects of the health sector, including the delivery of the medical care services. The underlying theme of such reform is to increase the capacity of the health care institutions (hospitals, health centres, Laboratories, etc...) to deliver more and better quality medical care and to gradually strengthen these institutions to independently manage their own human, financial and other resources. These responsibilities were until hitherto the FMoH‟s responsibility; but the FMoH is gradually limiting its role to setting national health policy and strategy, monitoring their implementation and progress thereon, and conducting evaluation and audit. One of the key features of the “ongoing reform”, referred to above, is the concerted effort to explore more, and increase the current, uses of “Information & Communication Technologies (ICT)” support to the National Health Care Services, including its clinical, public health and managerial aspects – referred to briefly as “eHealth support”. Cost-effective eHealth support is indeed the most worthwhile avenue for the Sudan. This study started with a rigorous analysis of the requirements of a wide range of users in hospitals, health centres and their various technical and administrative support services, both in Khartoum and several other States. It also included an analysis of the capacities and potential for running and managing eHealth technological support