Participants at the session identified the need for a task force to accomplish the milestones and further developed a draft resolution for strengthening health information systems to be tabled at the upcoming Health Ministers Caucus to be held in Washington in September 2009.

There are a number of issues challenging the implementation of the HIS including the variations in the stages of development of the HIS among the countries; limited human resource to ensure sustainability especially in the area of information technology – a vital component of any HIS; lack of compatibility between systems as countries were using different types of software to effect their systems; inadequacy of the legal framework to accommodate electronic patient information which has implications for privacy, dissemination and acceptance; and more importantly the very high costs to individual countries.

In spite of these challenges it was acknowledged that each country represented had (i) some form of HIS in place whether it was paper based and/or electronic, (ii) there was expertise existing in the Caribbean to assist in facilitating the implementation of HIS, (iii) there were lessons learnt that could be shared by Saint Lucia and Belize, and (iv) countries realized that moving as a collective offered advantages especially to the smaller island states.

The workshop hosted by the Ministry of Health, Belize in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the OECS HIV/AIDS Project Unit (HAPU) and provided the participants with the opportunity to study the Belize HIS including the laboratory information systems and explore the present status of HIS within the Caribbean and to make recommendations for the way forward. The 3-day workshop was attended approximately fifty one (51) participants from the nine OECS countries, as well Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago.