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Rebalancing access to healthcare by implementing an e-health strategy in public hospitals
Project
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Project start date
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Project duration
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5 years
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AFD financing amount
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27 300 000 €
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Country and region
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Location
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Tunisie
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Type of financing
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Beneficiaries
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Ministry of Health, Public hospitals
The Tunisian Ministry of Health is modernizing its health information system. It is doing so by exploiting the potential of telemedicine with the aim of contributing to rebalancing access to public health between territories. In the context of the “Digital Tunisia” National Strategic Plan, the government has requested AFD’s support to help it design and implement an “e-health” strategy.
Context
The health sector in Tunisia is marked by considerable territorial inequalities in access to healthcare, which come on top of the strong socioeconomic and regional disparities in the country. At the same time, the level of digitization of the health system remains limited in Tunisia, especially in hospitals.
To develop digital technologies for health and make up for the lack of information systems, the Ministry of Health has decided to prepare an ambitious program to deploy e-health with AFD’s support. This program follows on from a previous technical assistance project (FEXTE), which has created institutional e-health dynamics and defined the outline of the Tunisian investment project to promote digital health in Tunisia.
Description
This investment program aims to support the deployment of e-health and apply the use of digital tools in all areas of healthcare provision and in the modernization of public hospital services. It plans to develop four priority applications for the hospital information system in 15 of the country’s public hospitals for a medical imaging system (PACS), electronic health records, digital medical archives and a daily and individualized distribution of drugs.
To reduce regional inequalities in access to specialty care, five telemedicine initiatives will be set up for governorates in the north, center and south of Tunisia: tele-cardiology, tele-prenatal care, cardiac emergency, tele-radiology and tele-obstetrical ultrasound.
Finally, the structuring and development of a Tunisian e-health collective, oriented internationally and towards the private sector, will be supported.
Impacts
The support for the development of the use of digital technologies in the health sector will contribute to improving the quality and efficiency of a modernized Tunisian public health system. It will also contribute to reducing the territorial divide in access to healthcare. Furthermore, the project uses the new digital tools to support the change in the public service and address the ongoing demographic and epidemiological transition in Tunisia.