#076 Interview: Health Informatics Specialist Md. Aminul Islam

In the interview series by Biggani.org, we spoke with Health Informatics specialist Md. Aminul Islam. 

He completed his honors at East West University, followed by a master’s degree from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska Institutet. 

Currently, he is teaching as an Assistant Professor at Bangladesh University of Health Sciences (BUHS). Notably, BUHS is the first university in Bangladesh focused on health sciences, established in 2012 by the Bangladesh Diabetic Society. Alongside BUHS, he is also working part-time at Armed Forces Medical Institute and Bangladesh Open University. In addition to teaching, he is well-known for his work as a “Digital Health Consultant” at various institutions. 

The interview was conducted by Dr. Moshior Rahman, editor of Biggani.org.

Highlights from the interview:

• Many software companies are working in the healthcare sector in Bangladesh. If each company keeps a doctor and a health informatics expert on their teams, they will be able to collect much better user feedback as domain experts. 
• Due to digital transformation in our healthcare sector, a huge amount of data will be stored and used, and many “evidence-based” decisions will be made based on this data.

• There is extensive work being done on early prediction or risk estimation before the onset of diseases through Artificial Intelligence (AI), and its importance is gradually increasing.

• Artificial intelligence will play an even greater role in the field of medicine in the future. 

• Many kinds of software are being developed for healthcare in Bangladesh, such as electronic medical record systems, electronic health record systems, telemedicine systems, and various mobile health solutions. However, most of these software systems are not built according to health data standards, resulting in a lack of interoperability between different systems. This is a major obstacle to digital transformation in healthcare. 

• In Bangladesh, government health projects usually do not allocate additional budget for support and maintenance after the project ends, causing many projects to fail or be discontinued.

Watch the full interview in the video:
https://youtu.be/udKgzkpoUt8

Interview conducted on: 22 February 2023
Contact Md. Aminul Islam:
Email [email protected]