In the beginning of April, #HealthCaribbean featured technologies applied in the Caribbean, in our edition 2021-06-12. We do the same in this newsletter. Two Caribbean countries are covered, namely: Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. One article is about technology in general. Three of the remaining four articles are on Jamaica. And, the other is on Trinidad and Tobago.
Our headline, taken from the Jamaica Observer, reads: “Novamed Looks to Advance Health-care Solutions with Virtual Innovation Lab”. The local healthcare business’ Virtual Innovation Lab targets six primary areas of innovation — biomedical engineering, health technology, advance technology, biochemical sciences, clinical sciences and health analytics.
Trinidad ‘s use of a first-come first-serve walk-in vaccination proceedure has resulted in what has been described as “vaccine pandemonium, superspreader events”. While in Jamaica, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) had purchased the COVID-19 Vaccination CommCare Software, and training was sponsored by the Private Sector Vaccination Initiative (PSVI).
One element of digitization is the use of a unique medical record (UMR), which is currently in use at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI). The other is the transformation to digital records. After spending over half a billion dollars, UHWI’s project to transform that institution into a paperless one is now four years past its original deadline with no end in sight.