Since the last quarter of 2014, the Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC) of the School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila University has trained over 170 health offices from different cities and municipalities all over the country.  These seminars were conducted as part of the project of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) called eHATID (eHealth TABLET for Informed Decision-Making).

Funded by the DOST’s Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, eHATID is a cloud-based electronic medical record application made for Local Government Units (LGUs). eHATID provides LGUs with PhilHealth reports, real-time and aggregated data on notifiable diseases, graphs and statistics on the LGU-wide health information, and communication between the rural health unit and the mayor of the locality.

Patient records are encoded in the Android devices by the rural health units, and the electronic medical records will then be uploaded to the DOST cloud. In case the LGUs encounter internet connectivity problems, the devices will still be able to store patient data. eHATID also comes with security features: it requires a username, password, and a PIN to ensure patient confidentiality and privacy.

The eHATID LGU project was also part of the eHealth Summit last July 24-28, 2015, at the SMX Convention Center. The project team aims to train 450 municipalities and cities by the end of 2015.  The eHATID group is also set to deliver a presentation on this initiative at Chulalongkorn University (Thailand) this October 2015.

Photo credits: Department of Science and Technology – Marinduque