Need of improving Human Resources in health through ICT

Abstract

Ever since the emergence of human being on this earth “Health Care” has evolved and developed substantially. Caring health of people is so crucial that substantial proportion of government budget and individual out of pocket expenditure accounts for health care. Health standards measured by health indicators such as life expectancy at birth, infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate do not increase proportionately to increments in expenditure on health. Countries like Singapore and Republic of Korea have achieved health standards closer to developed countries even though their expenditure on health is not as much as developed nations. Previous researches and surveys have found that this is due to level of education, life styles, foreign aid etc. This study evaluates the importance of human resources of health over and above financial and physical resources in improving health standards. Further increment of proportion of GDP spent on health is intolerable, alternative ways have to found. The study also looks into the opportunities available for utilising ICT in improving health standards by providing access to HR to large community. By analysing developed and developing countries it was found that there is a very significant positive relationship between number of physicians, nurses and other HR and life expectancy and significant negative relationship between expenditure and infant mortality and maternal mortality. Study revealed a significant relationship between access to clean water and sanitation and health standards. It is concluded that HR matters a lot more in improving health standards that financial and physical resources. Increasing human resources takes a long time therefore other measures have to be taken to improve health standards. It is suggested that usage of concepts like e-health and telemedicine will remedy the issue.