Economics of health informatics in developing countries

Health Informatics (HI) has become a world wide issue since 2005 when the WHO Health Metrics Network (HMN) was formed to encourage all of the developing countries (151) to get started in eHealth. Prior to this HMN initiative the only countries with HI in place were the developed countries (40) and a few developing countries (Jamaica, Malaysia, etc.) that were just getting started in HI with a very limited number of applications compared to the developed countries. This paper suggests that much of the experience in HI gained in the developed countries can be shared with the developing countries as 'lessons learnt' - as long as the issue of economics is kept front and foremost in the planning.