1. e-Health project implementation &
challenges
Shriyananda Rathnayake
Project Manager

2. Sri Lanka Health Indices
• High life expectancy – 77.4 Years
• Low rate of infant mortality (8.5 per 1,000 live
births)
• Low rate of maternal mortality (41.6 per
100,000 live births)
• Over 89% of the population has access to safe
drinking water in the country while 85% of
population has proper sanitation facilities

3. Why we need e-Health Records
• Burden of Non Communicable Diseases (NCD)
have increased rapidly during last two decades
(related deaths per100,00 populations)
1990
2009
Neoplasms
10.2
18.5
Diseases of the circulatory system
41.7
60.6
Diseases of the respiratory system
13.3
21.9
• Communicable diseases such as Tuberculosis,
Leprosy, Dengue has a become major crisis.

4. Why we need e-Health Records
NCDs are chronic
Demand systematic
treatment
Disease management
Understanding the Base line
declaration of an
epidemic
CD
Rate of Incidence

5. Notifiable Diseases surveillance System
Source– K Chandrasekar at al/Sri Lanka Journal of bio medical informatics 2013;4(1):14-22

6. Micro Impact
• Private sector health expenditure 55.24%
– 80% of out-of-pocket expenditure
– No proper information system
– No proper NCD, CD management, leads to huge cost
burden to patient
– Ad hoc treatment
– Individual household income affected
– House hold savings affected
– Investment affected.
Such as Education

7. Macro Impact
• Public sector health expenditure 44.75%
– No Proper information system
– No proper NCD management, leads to huge cost
burden to government
– Unhealthy population
– Unhealthy workforce, Less GDP
– Less Income
– Less investment and leads to under development

8. Challenges
• Not recognizing the timely requirement of
Electronic Health records
• Hardware
– Cost of computer hardware, Compatibility of
medical equipment, Cost of Network owing to
dispersion, less research on ROI
• Liveware
– Leadership, Annual transfer, Change Management,
Low ICT Literacy, Lack of health staff, Lack of
Process Re-engineering, Accountability, Lack of
research evidence on benefits to the staff.

9. Challenges… contd…
• Software
– Licensing cost, Maintenance cost, Proprietary
issue such as vendor locking , Interoperability,
Health Standards, Government Standards, Data
Security, Privacy, User friendliness, Acceptance.
• Policy
– No e-Health policy, Strategic plan, Guideline
(developed 3 years ago, still on draft), Ethical
Clarence, Medico Legal clearance, Ownership of
Big data, who own the individual health records

10. Thanks you
http://lk.linkedin.com/in/shriyananda
https://twitter.com/shri_srilanka