The most important project initiated by the government to digitalize the Maldives and modernize services is “Maldives 2.0”. Under this project, one of the areas given the highest priority by the government is the health sector. The major aspects of this project will be visible to the public within the next year or year and a half. The natural geographical layout of the Maldives is the biggest challenge in implementing development projects in the country. As a result, governments have to incur significant expenses to provide services across the Maldives. To address this issue, the government has now started special efforts to bring development using digital and modern innovations.
In this regard, while working with the World Health Organization to digitalize the health system, President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu has stated that the health sector is one of the top priority areas under the government’s digitalization master plan.
Along with the ongoing efforts to digitalize the health sector, Ibrahim Abdur Razzaq Haleem, CEO of Male’ City Group of Hospitals, has stated that work is underway to connect all hospitals in Male’ City through a single system. He also mentioned that regional hospitals will be connected to this system afterwards. Additionally, the CEO said that efforts are being made to establish a Central Health Records Exchange system through which medical details from all hospitals can be accessed.
Ibrahim Abdur Razzaq Haleem said that by changing the current method and implementing the same type of hospital management systems in all government hospitals, test results and other information of patients will be available across all hospitals. He noted that this would solve the problem of duplicate tests and speed up services. Male’ City Group of Hospitals stated that the work to strengthen and digitalize the health system is expected to be completed within the next year or year and a half. The government says that as this service expands, the telemedicine service currently being piloted in Kulhudhuffushi will also be further expanded. This will allow patients to consult doctors in other regions while remaining in their own islands.
This addresses the biggest issue in the current Maldivian health system, which is fragmented across individual islands – the problem of relying on Male’ for doctor consultations. Therefore, with the government’s digitalization efforts, a solution to this will be found. The government also says that digitalization will allow individuals to access their own health records.
