The Ministry of Health (MOH) in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) ,is holding a week-long meeting in Kigali, aimed at discussing ways of simplifying procurement and operating of software used in e-health programs.

According to the national e-health coordinator in the MoH, Dr. Richard Gakuba, the software that are used in e-health programs are most times difficult to operate hence leading to problems in the systems.

"There are times when we procure software and they become expensive to maintain and we are not able to update it, which derails the whole system. So this vendor-client meeting is aiming at reaching a consensus between the two parties on how to deal with the issue,” Gakuba said.

The meeting brings together delegates from different countries, mainly IT experts and software vendors.

Gakuba says that the meeting will come up with guidelines which will help governments go about the issue of e-health implementation.

The document will also be tabled at the next WHO African Regional Committee for discussion.

MOH is set to roll out state-of-the-art software systems in all hospitals next year.

The new system will be a solution to most problems that hospitals still face with regard to efficiency in service provision and boosting quality healthcare.

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