MakHIRG existence stems from the need to connect Health Informatics solutions to all health services consumers (more than 40 million people) in Uganda and beyond. The potential for application of informatics in the healthcare sector and related health disciplines in Uganda has expanded rapidly in recent years; for example, Uganda demonstrates embracing the benefits of electronic (digital) health through developing its ehealth Policy and Strategy.
The application of these ICT tools embraces the promise of making healthcare service provision more beneficial and valuable. The concept of Health Informatics (HI) refers to the designing and development of health information systems and technologies, applied in health care to improve health care service delivery, management and planning in terms of better quality and efficiency (control cost for more availability).
To enhance the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of information in health care, HI requires the use of devices, resources, and methods. However, despite the accruing benefits of the ehealth (digital health) solutions, there is still a disconnection between these solutions and the health consumers for which they are meant to benefit.
This could be attributed to several factors the key ones including adhoc development of ehealth solutions without scientific grounding and standardizing; moreover most of the well-researched existing ehealth solutions may not necessarily align or be contextualized to Uganda health issues and challenges; even those that exist work in silos, and are not integrated nor evaluated to determine the impact value-addition regards decision making and informing policy on healthcare; and there is a considerably limited extant pool of relevant skills and human capital needed to implement the ehealth strategy across the entire health sector in Uganda.
To address these gaps, MakHIRG pursues three key activities: research and development, education and training as well as IT and innovations services development. We thus position ourselves to:
Facilitate the translation of HI scientific research to applied research to support socio transformation regards health care for society; that is, establishment of a research arm to undertake, partake and up-take health informatics research and development to support delivery of technological innovative products and services to government, development partners, industry and society.
Support Makerere University with bridging Health Informatics research and the society as well as the industry for improved partaking and uptake to solve real life health care problems including provision of enabling environments to cultivate research practicums and internships for research faculty, graduate and bachelor's students to align their research outputs with field settings.
Facilitate the grounding of HI scientific research for appropriate health industry and society HI solutions.
Support the use and creation of empirical evidence-based, reliable, reusable, and sustainable decision-making and informed policy-making in the health sector.
Facilitate the alignment and contextualization of new HI solutions (artifacts) brought to the country to avoid “one size fits all” culture.
