The Virgin Islands National Information Systems for Health: vision, actions, and lessons learned for advancing the national public health agenda

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) Ministry of Health and Social Development (MOHSD) recently identified the need for an updated strategy to advance the country’s vision for Information Systems for Health (IS4H) (“Informed decision-making for better health outcomes”). Since the early 1990s, the MOHSD...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública
Main Authors: Irad Potter, Tracia Petersen, Marcelo D'Agostino, Daniel Doane, Patricia Ruiz, Myrna Marti, James Fitzgerald, Amalia del Riego, Federico G. de Cosio, Marcos Espinal
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Spanish
Portuguese
Published: Pan American Health Organization 2018
Subjects:
Information systems
public health
health systems
British Virgin Islands
Caribbean region
Medicine
R
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
RC955-962
Public aspects of medicine
RA1-1270
Arctic
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.26633/RPSP.2018.156
https://doaj.org/article/d6460010a16845d680df3c68e81e3553
Description
Summary:The British Virgin Islands (BVI) Ministry of Health and Social Development (MOHSD) recently identified the need for an updated strategy to advance the country’s vision for Information Systems for Health (IS4H) (“Informed decision-making for better health outcomes”). Since the early 1990s, the MOHSD has recognized the importance of having strong conceptual foundations and mechanisms for its information systems, and the need to strengthen the production and use of good-quality health data to enable fulfillment of the territory's health goals. Therefore, in May 2017, BVI requested technical assistance from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to develop a plan/“road map” for strengthening the MOHSD's stewardship capacity for IS4H. This resulted in a bilateral, country-led collaboration between PAHO and the Ministry to carry out two assessments of BVI's National Information Systems for Health (NISH): 1) a rapid assessment to map NISH policy, to develop a short- and medium-term workplan for strengthening and updating it, and 2) a maturity assessment, using PAHO's IS4H Maturity Model tool, to evaluate the implementation of NISH policy thus far and determine next steps. This article describes 1) the steps taken in this bilateral collaboration to update BVI's NISH policy and fine-tune its IS4H vision, including the development of a national plan/road map, and 2) lessons learned.

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