Feasibility analysis for deploying national healthcare information system (NHIS) for Pakistan

Lack of healthcare infrastructure has caused millions of deaths in developing countries. People in such countries generally suffer from infectious diseases and are denied treatment at appropriate time or not warned about emerging epidemics. This mainly happens because of poor establishment of public health services, lack of access to health statistics and nonexistence of precise medical data. The deployment of e-health and specifically Electronic Health Record (EHR) system may help in upgrading and boosting healthcare in developing countries like Pakistan. This paper studies and compares different approaches taken by a group of countries from North America, Europe, Western Asia and Africa for developing and implementing a national EHR in the public health system. The foremost challenges highlighted in this paper are of integration, interoperability, trainings, awareness, standardization, funds, and legal framework, which would help in developing a National EHR system in Pakistan. A National Healthcare Information System (NHIS) is proposed for health sector of Pakistan. The proposed system will be capable of efficient storage, management and sharing of electronic health information of patients in Pakistan. NHIS will also help in conducting surveys and analysis of health statistics for future health planning.