A Distributed Electronic Patient Record System for the Mauritian Healthcare Service

Abstract

Developed and developing countries have recognized the importance of ICT in healthcare services and most developed countries are investing important amounts in nation-wide healthcare information systems. At the heart of a nation-wide healthcare information system is the national Electronic Patient Record System. As per the white paper published by the Ministry of Health in December 2002, Mauritius wishes to have a modern healthcare service of international standards. For such aspirations, Mauritius needs to give due attention to the development of a nation-wide EPR system. This paper briefly describes the Mauritius public healthcare service, motivates the need for a nation-wide EPR system and presents, from an Information Technology perspective, a suitable approach for partitioning and replicating the data and proposes an appropriate architectural model. It also proposes a suitable security scheme for such a system.