Health

Botswana healthcare system has evolved significantly through the years. However, there is still severe shortage of doctors, qualified nurses, health workers, revenue collectors and drugs making access to medical attention a problem especially for rural areas dwellers. Furthermore, many patients travel long distances to seek medical attention and in many instances they find long queues at medical facilities when they need to register to see a doctor collection of medication. BITRI has identified, through stakeholder consultations, some issues that affect efficient healthcare in Botswana, especially for rural dwellers. These include:
• Long queues at service points (e.g. collection of medication at hospital/clinic pharmacies)
• Waiting time to see a doctor
• Lack of doctors in rural areas
• Registration in clinics and hospitals to see a doctor or to collect medication
• Collection of revenue
• Issues with the current Integrated Patient Management System (IPMS)
• Checking availability of drugs and doctors Objectives Use ICTs/mobile applications to:

• resolve issues relating to access to medical attention and drugs
• enable medical information dissemination
• enable flexible patient registration
• address literacy issues in the use ICTs
• develop convenient systems for revenue collection Research on patient acceptance of mobile technology, data security and integration into other information systems (interoperability)