The Ministry of Health and Wellness collects and keeps track of all their patient data through what they call a BHIS, Belize Health information System, but they are not the only one's collecting this type of data. By partnering with other organizations like PAHO and WHO the ministry plans to increase its interoperability and how they can better control how this data is shared. They held a Data-Thon today and here are the highlights from that event.
Dr Andrei Chell, Director, PAPU MOHW
"So this is Belize's first public health datathon. We are doing this in partnership with PAHO, WHO country office along with colleagues at Washington DC. We are bringing different institutions here in Belize to really over the next two days have exercises to promote data sharing to see the different databases that each institution is using and really see where the data is coming from, right? We want to do a mapping really to see where all this health data is coming and how we as a ministry can then use this data to inform our policies and actions."
"So the main objective of this datathon is actually to put the ministry of health as the steward of health data governance so we are trying to look now at digital health transformation and we are all moving towards that digital era of modernising our health system so we as ministry now we have that mandate to actually ensure that whatever data we receive meets the quality of what we need and that data in turn will then inform our policies, our actions which then translates to the better health outcomes that we want to give to the entire Belizean population."
Juan Carlos Sarabia, Acting IT Manager, MOHW
"So in the IT department we do manage the Belize Health information system and as you know last year we did publish the clinic data exchange platform which is now in a production environment."
"So this datathon that we are doing for these two days helps a lot because it is also to introduce to the different stakeholders and the different ministries and units that we do have a system in which interoperability and data exchange can really happen. And it is not just the exchange of data but also being able to create dashboard reports and KPI's for the different institutions and the ministry of health and wellness."
"So the idea of the Datathon for us is to look at the gaps and also be able to do a data mapping because we do have institutions that collect some type of health data and the idea is to have an overall I guess idea of what a national health information system can be for the ministry of health."
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