Belize City, Belize, June 16, 2022 (PAHO) – Through the “Health Sector Support Programme Belize” project, the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and the European Union (EU) donated a server and UPS to the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW).
Establishing an electronic repository system at the MoHW will allow for a centralized location that will increase the MoHW’s capacity for data collection, storage, analysis and dissemination of health-related information. It will also ensure that the aggregation of data is kept and maintained in an organized way, and enhance remote accessibility to critical information by MoHW staff while they are in the field. As part of the smart hospitals component of the project in developing efficient, effective, disaster-resilient, and environmentally friendly health facilities, the repository will specifically serve as an information storage and sharing system for health facility assessments and reports, infrastructure designs, technical drawings, and plans.
There are six health facilities selected to become “smart” (safe and green) under this component of the project: Punta Gorda Community Hospital, Corozal Community Hospital, Southern Regional Hospital Northern Regional Hospital, Western Regional Hospital, and the Central Medical Laboratory. The repository system will ease data sharing with the above-mentioned health facilities and will allow the MoHW to refer to and store information that may assist in developing other smart health facilities in the country.
The server has eight (8) terabytes of storage capacity and 32 gigabytes of RAM with a top core processor that will increase the MoHW’s overall capacity to host databases for processing health information for the country as well as facilitate the administration and backup of systems at the Ministry. Among them is the One Health platform, a collaborative, multisectoral, and trans-disciplinary site that highlights the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental health.
The Health Sector Support Programme Belize is a five-year project funded by the EU and being implemented through PAHO/WHO in collaboration with the MoHW. The project aims to “Achieving a better quality of life, for all Belizeans, living now and in the future” with three main objectives:
- SO1: developing efficient, effective, disaster-resilient and environmentally friendly health facilities;
- SO2: improving the structure, organization and management of health services; and
- SO3: to support tender, installation and operationalization of a Clinical Data Exchange Warehouse and Analytics Platform software (referred to as CDEP).
