As the Commonwealth of Dominica transforms its Health Systems with the objective to ensure equitable access, quality care, and use of 21st century technology that is not only effective but able to produce accurate information in real time; the Covid-19 pandemic while a dark moment in our history, also created many forced opportunities.
Dr. Shalauddin Ahmed, National Epidemiologist of the Ministry of Health in Dominica gave an example of one of those forced opportunities. He says, “the lesson learned from the pandemic of Covid is that we need to move away from paper-based reporting to electronic based.”
The process of Digital Transformation is not an easy task nor an overnight feat. There are many moving parts which encompass the makeover, some transitions may take one to two years, other delicate transformations may take as much as five.
For instance, let’s shine the light on the Electronic Immunization Registry (EIR). This is an online tool which allows the storage of all vaccination information and permits people to access their vaccination records when needed.
The EIR was implemented in April 2022 by the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) Unit of the Ministry of Health. This online system was developed by Dominican Technology Firm “Open Solutions for Health” (OS4H) and funded by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
