Health Information System in North East India

The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being-thus proclaimed in the constitution of WHO. Sound health helps an individual to lead a socially and economically productive life. Keeping this in view, a number of programmes have been imitated and implemented in India and other countries of the world to achieve the much quoted slogan “Health for All”, which is a challenge to the health authorities, planners, professionals para-professionals and the general public. However, HFA programme cannot effective be implemented unless accurate information is made available to every individual. Efficient health information raises the level of public health to a large extent, which will be evident only (a) if the healthy are professionals and para-professionals are better informed about their patients, diseases and treatments; (b) when there are improved and better system for epidemiology so that general public will be able to trace the causes of diseases easily; and (c) when people take care of their own health with the support of effective health information system (HIS). Any initiative taken up for health care programme need the support of Information systems for their effective implementation. Several studies are found to be conducted in India and abroad on HIS. However, there is hardly any study available on such system in a particular region like North East India, which will be a significant contribution in the field of Library and Information emphasizes on (a) the importance of health and HIS; (b) the health information studies conducted in India; (c) the health care scenario in North East India, particularly of Manipur (d) the access to HIS by different categories of users; and (f) designing a model of an effective HIS> The book is expected to contribute in serving the needs of the student, scholars and teachers of library and Information Science, practicing library and information professionals, health care professionals, para-professionals and particularly medical library professionals.