Improving Clinical Practice through Mobile Medical Informatics

Background

The health care sector in Sudan is being challenged by many organizational, institutional, technical and technological issues that endangered its ability to provide quality services (UNFPA website, UNCEF website, Ministry of Health website). Because public hospitals are competing with other government units for public funds, they failed to acquire appropriate medical technology and improve clinical practice through improved diagnosis and staff training and retention. The lack of a sound managing capacity has also reduced their ability to integrate backward (with community and rural hospitals) and coordinate forward (with educational institutions, industry and research community). The recent economic liberalization has also increased both the “financial” and “managerial” overheating of public hospitals who fail to run as self-sufficient units rather than “cost centers’. While the quality of the services provided by private clinics and hospitals (both inside and outside Sudan) tends to be high their paramountly high costs make them out of the reach of many patients.

The deterioration of the quality of health services and clinical practice due to the following: