Challenges and Opportunities of Secondary Use of health Data in Developing Countries

Abstract

Open and reliable health data platforms can assist developing countries in responding to the many pressing issues confronting their society and economy today. Many countries’ cultural and economic structures have already been affected by the global pandemic, and data has played an important role in addressing these global challenges as well as cross-sector collaboration in public health response. Even before the pandemic, there was a pressing need to improve healthcare systems and better manage limited resources to meet the requirements of rising, and frequently aging, populations. We can boost the value of health data and assist to achieve these advancements by reusing it in diverse ways. Clinical data, such as healthcare incidents and clinical trial data, can be merged with information gathered from other sources, such as illness and insurance claims records, as well as gadgets and wearable technology. This data may then be anonymized and pooled to develop new insights and optimize population health, enhance the health and experiences of patients, build more efficient healthcare systems, and stimulate innovation. While many advanced countries have taken the advantage of secondary use of health data, developing countries like Nigeria are lagging behind due to challenges ranging from inadequate infrastructure, manual data collection and processing, siloed electronic health records, poor data quality, inefficient skills in data use core competencies, just to mention but few. This paper takes a deeper look at the inherent opportunities in the use of secondary health data and barriers toward its use in developing countries.