Kampala — Health care providers will soon have instant access to medical data following the launching of the Uganda Health Information Network (UHIN), last Wednesday.

Speaking at the ongoing UHIN workshop at Makerere University, Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda said the programme would use computer-aided communication.

UHIN is a project of Uganda Chartered HealthNet (UCH), Makerere University's Faculty of Medicine and US-based Satellite.

A pilot phase of the project starts in Rakai and Mbale districts by the end of this month. It will later expand to other districts.

The project director, Mr Patrick Okello, explained thus: "the network is designed to provide nationwide wireless networking to health care providers to improve on their ability to treat patients effectively."

He said the users would be able to access the latest treatment guidelines for tuberculosis and malaria and learn cost-effective approaches to fight HIV/Aids.

Okello said each health centre in the country would receive two sets of the equipment of this new technology at a cost of Shs 200,000 each.

The network is built around the existing cell phone network, computers and wireless servers called jacks.