Thank you for sharing

We have started work for two hospitals in India and are going to run some field trials at one of them next week. We’ll be sharing more details on the projects soon.

When dealing with developing nations to implement electronic health records we got to pay attention to some ethical issues that may arise.

One of the unique challenges is to provide the patients with information in a culturally and linguistically appropriate format. Informing people of methods to protect confidentiality and what will happen if there are data breaches may be a very different task in cultures that do not ascribe to a more western notion of individual privacy and personal autonomy. The same is true of any disclosures about research use, secondary use, data ownership, or any contemplated data sharing agreements and legal accountability.

The immense benefits of a patient’s doctors and hospitals being able to access and share health information cannot be overstated. It will be a great benefit not only to individual patients but to the community as well, and will lead to better health care for all.
I was wondering though, in these developing nations, if the patients themselves have the available technology (computers, smart phones) to be able to access and manage their health information?