The 3rd International e-Health Conference will start tomorrow (Saturday) at the University of Health Sciences (UHS). The two-day conference is being organised by e-Health Association of Pakistan. The theme of the conference is "Road to National e-Health Strategy for Pakistan". Punjab Food Minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor will inaugurate the conference.
The aim of the conference is to identify and prioritize areas of e-Health development in Pakistan that could lead to the formation of a National e-Health Strategy for the country.
The keynote speakers of the conference include Dr Richard E. Scott, Director Global e-Health Strategy, University of Calgary, Canada; Dr Esther Ogara, Director e-Health, Ministry of Health, Kenya; Hani Farook, e-Health Regional focal point for WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, Cairo, Egypt; Nuwan Waidyanatha, Senior Researcher at LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka; Dr Ronald C. Merrell, Emeritus Professor of Surgery at Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Professor S.K. Mishra, Head Department of Endocrine Surgery and Faculty Telemedicine Programme, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India; Sania Nishtar, a key health policy voice in Pakistan and founder of Heartfile and Pakistan Health Policy Forum; Dr Abdus Salam Khan, Director of Emergency Services, Shifa International Hospital Islamabad; and Dr Sikder M. Zakir founder of Telemedicine Reference Center Ltd, Bangladesh.
A large number of health and IT professionals, researchers and students will attend the conference where there shall be panel discussions, paper presentations, scientific poster competitions, keynote addresses and workshops on e-Health technology. Regarding the conference, Dr Haroon Roedad Khan, President eHAP said that e-Health was an emerging field, which aimed to charge the way in which information and related technology was used to improve the quality of patient care.