“The Impact of Health Informatics on Public Health Emergency Response During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Developing Countries – Systematic Review”

Abstract

<strong>Introduction: </strong>The world grapples with the unprecedented challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic with devastating economic and social impacts. The healthcare systems across developed and developing countries are laid a huge responsibility with immense pressure to combat this contemporary global crisis. With modern technological improvements health informatics (HI) plays a vital role in the public health emergency response (PHER). However, there is little empirical evidence to show the impact of HI in developing countries during this pandemic. <strong> </strong> <strong>Objective: </strong>To determine how HI impacted the PHER during Covid-19 pandemic in developing countries. <strong> </strong> <strong>Methodology: </strong>This study deployed a systemic review of published quality academic journals that emphasize and evaluate the HI role and impact during PHER in developing countries. <strong> </strong> <strong>Results: </strong>The synthesized evidence in developed countries found that the technological advances in telemedicine, e-health and mobile devices have proven to possess huge potentials in controlling the pandemic spread with enormous rapid transformations of service delivery patterns, with high patient satisfaction. HI impact on developing countries reported a high positivity towards PHER during Covid-19 pandemic. The adoption rates were low in developing countries with the key determinants; digital technology, efficient health governance, partnership, collaboration in national &amp; international, infrastructure, stakeholder skills and acceptance. The empirical research findings clearly showed the fundamental need to establish suitable HI initiative framework in developing countries in align with the countries national policies with medium to long-term plans and collaborative international partnerships. The level of maturity of HI needed to be deployed within health systems at pace and scale ready enough to save the world in most needed.