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Nottingham Trent University (UK), Jahangirnagar University (Bangladesh) and Applied Intelligence and Informatics Lab (AII LAB) organised a workshop and co-design session on ‘Digital Healthcare Apps for a Secure Society’ at Dhaka Club on June 9, 2022.
Eminent educationists, doctors, scientists, researchers, engineers, RMG factory owners and bankers of the country conducted the session. A panel discussion on various challenges, issues and policy frameworks of digital health was also held.
Speakers at the program said that the recommended doctor-nurse-technician ratio is 1: 3: 5, but the current ratio in Bangladesh is 1: 0.4: 0.24. Bangladesh needs 90,000 doctors, 2,73,000 nurses and 4,55,000 technicians.
Besides, a significant number of the population lives in rural and remote areas, where healthcare facilities are often inaccessible. Although several initiatives related to mobile health (mHealth) have been implemented before in Bangladesh, such as free teleconsultation, and mobile application development, no mobile-based initiative to protect the healthcare of industry workers in Bangladesh has yet yielded the desired results in the healthcare sector.
“In developing countries like Bangladesh, this seminar is organised to create a secure healthcare sector by maintaining data privacy through a mobile app,” said, Mufti Mahmud, Nottingham Trent University Professor and Seminar Coordinator.
“Basically this seminar is to help the government in formulating an action plan on how to keep the economy of Bangladesh afloat by protecting the health care of the industrial workers of our country,” he added.
JU IIT Professor M Shamim Kaiser conducted a lively presentation on the overall challenges facing the mobile services sector in Bangladesh.
Dr Sirajul Islam, an Emeritus Scientist of ICDDR,b, said, “mHealth is one of the digital solutions, has been one of the focus in Bangladesh for the last couple of years. Building mobile apps for healthcare will create opportunities for the lower and middle-income people.”
A co-design session was held after the seminar, which was attended by stakeholders from various industries in Bangladesh and raised various issues related to digital health, policy constraints, app usability, and the availability of mobile services.
Jointly presented by Professor Sarwar Morshed of AUST and Associate Professor of Jahangirnagar University Shamim Al Mamun, General Manager of Crown Cement Group ABM Abu Yusuf Ali Khan, Chief Pupil Officer of GPH Ispat Ltd Sharmin Sultana, Associate Professor of National Heart Institute Abul Hasan Mahmud Bashar, Professor of Rajshahi University, Jakir Hossain, Vice President of South-East Bank NM Firoz Kamal, BGME's Productivity and Innovation Center Industry Engineer Abu Ansari, Chief News Editor of NewsBangla24 Sanjay Dey and participants from Jahangirnagar University attended the workshop.
The workshop and co-design session concluded with a discussion on the usefulness of this workshop in creating a mobile healthcare sector for the next generation.