CHS Annouces US $1.95 million for e-Health

September 5, 2007

Community Health Sciences (CHS) is proud to announce a grant of CAN $2.04 million (approximately US $1.95 million) over three years from International Development Research Center (IDRC), Canada to develop capacity for e-Health advancement and research in eighteen developing countries of Asia.

The grant has been awarded to Dr Shariq Khoja (Assistant Professor in CHS and Medical Director's Office), who will act as Principal Investigator on this project, and will work in coordination with number of institutions in Asia to promote e-Health research in the region. The project is called PAN Asian Collaboration for Evidence-based e-Health Adoption and Application (PANACeA), and will try to find answers to the following four core research questions:

• Which e-Health applications and practices have had the most beneficial outcomes on the health of individuals, communities and the improvement of health systems?
• What are the best ways for ensuring that beneficial outcomes can reach the segment of the population that still doesn't have adequate access to health services?
• What is the potential of using new pervasive technologies such as mobile phones/PDAs as tools to make the delivery of health services or information more effective?
• What types of technologies/applications are best suited to help prepare for, or mitigate the effects of disasters, pandemics and emerging and re-emerging diseases?

Other major partners on this project are University of Calgary in Canada , Angeles University Foundation in Philippines , PrimaCare in Malaysia and Molave Development Foundation in Philippines . All these partners are getting separate funds for their specific roles in the project.

Congratulations to Dr Shariq Khoja on this achievement.