INVITED SPEAKER

Moving Towards Sustainability in Health Information Systems for HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment

Prof. Janise Richards
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA

Abstract

During the past decade there has been an explosion of health information systems supporting the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS patients in Africa. Due to the longitudinal nature of antiretroviral therapy (ART), the quality of care provided to ART patients is directly related to the quality of clinical and non-clinical information available to clinicians and ministries of health. Additionally, the complexity of data being captured and increasing number of patients on ART necessitates the use of electronic patient monitoring systems. However, this rapid deployment has resulted in the proliferation of different electronic systems for data collection and management; thus increasing the resources needed to support these systems and reducing the ability to integrate data to facilitate patient care and strategic planning.

These issues have led us to ask: how do we identify the best option(s) for electronic health information systems that can be sustained by ministries of health to support their care and treatment services including the necessary standard clinical data, health indicators, and reporting requirements needed to monitor patients on ART. Through a series of system assessments and evaluations, we are refining models and methods to detect the attributes of health information system suitability and sustainability that provide the optimum evidence to make decisions on appropriate health information systems for HIV/AIDS care. This presentation will describe these models and methods.

Biography of the Invited Speaker

Janise Richards is a Senior Informatics Advisor in the Global Aids Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In this position she participates in strengthening health systems in PEPFAR funded countries through technical assistance in health information systems assessment and training. Prior to this position, Dr. Richards was the Director of the Public Health Informatics Fellowship Program (PHIFP) and acting Chief of the Informatics and Knowledge Systems Branch. Before CDC she taught Public Health Informatics and was Director of Outreach Education at the University of Texas School of Public Health (UTSPH). Prior to UTSPH, she worked in Medical Educational Research and Development at the University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center at San Antonio. Dr. Richards has been a consultant to numerous academic institutions including universities in Australia and Fiji. She has taught post-graduate courses in informatics at UT Austin, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and Emory University. She has been an invited speaker for over 100 instructional technology and informatics presentations. Dr Richards earned her PhD in information science from the UT Austin; her MPH from the UTSPH; and a MS in education and a MS in information technology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.