One year after it was set up, the Bermuda Health Council is now being kick started into action by the the Ministry of Health and Family Services.

The enactment of the Bermuda Health Council Act 2004 was delayed pending the completion of the regulations which will support the act and the functions of the Council.

The regulations for the Council should be enacted by January 2006. As an interim step the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health and Family Services hosted the first Bermuda Health Summit in March 2005.

A Health Council Working Committee comprised of representatives from across Government has been meeting since January 2005.

In order to facilitate the completion of all the tasks related to the establishment of the Bermuda Health Council, the Working Committee has established three subcommittees, the Legislation Subcommittee, the Governance and Structure Subcommittee and the IT Subcommittee.

As part of the IT Subcommittee?s remit, a request has been advertised for proposals from consultants with expertise in health care Information systems to facilitate the the information gathering for the design of the Health Council?s Information management system.

The exercise will take about one month from commencement and the outputs from this consultancy will be sufficient for the IT subcommittee to prepare a plan to meet the the initial information needs of the Council.

It will also initiate the design and development of a long term model for the gathering and management of health related data.

It is intended that by the end of the calendar year this subcommittee will be in a position to advise the Minister of Health of the information needs of the Council as outlined in the legislation and which support the regulations.

The Health Council Working Committee is responsible for ensuring:

The identification of the optimum governance model that reflects both the functions of the Council and best practice guidelines for healthcare systems.

The requirements for the Council?s ?start up? have been identified and the necessary resources are available.

The identification of the full range of regulations that must be in place for the start of the Council and those that must be enacted by the Council during its early stages.

The identification of the basic quantitative and qualitative requirements of the Council?s Information system and the nature of the collaboration required to ensure an effective system.

This request for proposals is available at www.gov.bm and from the Ministry of Health and Family Services headquarters.