HEALTHLINK - SATELLIFE AND HEALTHNET IN SOUTH-AFRICA

SatelLife is an international not-for-profit organisation, which began as an initiative of the group known as International Physicians for t he Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peac e Prize. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, SatelLife aims to promote the use of micro-satellite technology to serve the health communicatio n and information needs of countries in the developing world. SatelLif e administers HealthNet, which uses a 'store and forward' satellite in a pole-to-pole orbit, HealthSat, in order to facilitate the transmiss ion of messages and information between the ground stations over which it passes. The system is relatively cheap to install and is independe nt of the notoriously unreliable communications infrastructures of Thi rd World countries, relying as it does on radio rather than telephone links between each ground station and the satellite. HealthNet is spec ifically designed to facilitate the exchange of information among heal th professionals in the developing world and to link them with their c olleagues in First World countries. Essentially an e-mail system, Heal thNet has been installed in several northern African countries as well as Cuba. However, HealthNet is also used to facilitate the distributi on of an electronic newsletter among African medial librarians. Althou gh South Africa is technologically far more advanced than the rest of Africa, problems still arise in terms of the transmission of essential health statistics and data that is now required for demographic and h ealthcare planning in terms of the ANC's new health policy. Accordingl y, a pilot study linking three of the more under-developed regions in South Africa has recently been established under the coordination of a national manager. In South Africa, the system will be known as Health Link, as HealthNet already exists as a trademark in this country. This paper aims to describe the background leading to the establishment of HealthLink, as well as its current status in the improvement of elect ronic healthcare information delivery in South Africa.