In this Community Chat, and with members of the Caribbean tech community, Shoshannah Richards and Rishi Maharaj, the panel discusses:  electronic health records and disaster resilience; and individuals’ right to digital privacy and data protection.

 

This episode is also available in Apple iTunes and on Stitcher!

sIf there is a single word that could capture the common attitude of today’s culture, it would be ‘convenience’. Increasingly we are demanding not to be ‘inconvenienced’. We want thing when and where we want or need them, and without us having to jump through (too many) hoops to get them done. To that end, much is possible in the digital space.

The demand for convenience is also growing in the Caribbean region – across a broad range of sectors, and with respect to the provision of goods and services. One of the areas that is in the early stages of experiencing a digital transformation is patient care and the wider healthcare systems, through a growing thrust on the digitisation of health records.

 

Shoshannah Richards

The creation of electronic health records, and its importance in disaster resilience, is where our Community Chat for April 2019 begins, with Shoshannah Richards leading that discussion. Shoshannah is Jamaican and a recent Fellow of the DO School, which is headquartered in Germany, where she focussed on social entrepreneurship and digital media consulting.

In the aftermath of a disaster, access to the health records of citizens and patients, can be crucial in the effort to still provide adequate care under exigent circumstances. Shoshannah is of the view that the preparations made in anticipation of a disaster, facilitate the actions that can occur in its aftermath. She is thus of the view that the availability of electronic health records is crucial in improving the Caribbean’s disaster resilience, as it relates to healthcare management, and should be part of a country’s emergency management framework.

 

Rishi Maharaj

Although not planned, the discussion on electronic health records segued well into our second topic on individuals’ right to digital privacy and data protection, which was tabled by our second Community Chat guest, Rishi Maharaj. Rishi is the Executive Director of the EquiGov Institute, which is based in Trinidad and Tobago. The EquiGov Institute is a consulting and training firm that specialises in among other things, data privacy; public and private sector governance; whistleblowing, and monitoring and evaluation.

Thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), there has been a growing demand by countries worldwide  and by individuals for greater clarity and control over the privacy of their data, and the protection it is given. However, and although there seems be an increased awareness of digital privacy and data protection across the region with several Caribbean countries in the process of establishing data protection frameworks, Rishi is concerned that there are still some major deficiencies. Moreover, these gaps are evident in both the public and private sectors across the Caribbean region, and are discussed during the course of the segment.

 

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Select links

Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode, or otherwise, might be useful:

 

 

Image credits:  Baohm (Pixabay); S Richards; R Maharaj

Music credit:  Ray Holman