Questions are being raised about how a once-promising digital transformation initiative turned into a monopoly, dysfunction, and national vulnerability in the wake of a rapidly developing crisis in Ghana’s public health information infrastructure.
Once praised as a model for healthcare digitisation, the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) is now at the centre of a governance and policy mess that critics claim highlights the dangers of making decisions based on power rather than responsible, institutional policy.
The then-Minister of Health, by executive order, abruptly removed several electronic health information system providers from public health facilities in June 2021.
This unilateral action effectively forced all government-run health facilities to adopt Lightwave’s LHIMS as the exclusive electronic medical record (EMR) solution. The intent, at least on paper, was to digitise healthcare delivery and centralise patient data under a single unified platform.
Yet, the execution of this vision excluded stakeholder input, according to experts, disregarded interoperability standards, and sidelined critical institutions such as the National Information Technology Agency (NITA)—a move whose consequences are now haunting the sector.
Today, with a new administration determined not to renew Lightwave’s contract, health facilities are facing the stark reality of vendor lock-in.
Reports have emerged of Lightwave flexing its dominance by suspending services, leaving many hospitals locked out of critical systems that support everything from patient admissions to prescription management.
A leaked internal memo dated May 29, 2025, from Lightwave eHealthcare Solutions triggered alarm across the healthcare ecosystem, as it announced an unexpected suspension of services.
Though the Ministry of Health quickly intervened and assured the public that disruptions were averted, the scare exposed the underlying fragility of Ghana’s digital health framework.
Bright Simons, Honorary Vice President of IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, sharply criticised the policy environment that allowed a monopoly of this nature to fester.
Lack of Institutional Learning
In his words, the imposition of Lightwave reveals “a governance system in which policy does not dictate anything, only power.” According to Bright Simons, the lack of policy accountability and institutional learning has left the health sector exposed to the whims of private vendors, without adequate safeguards or recourse.
Renowned Pharmacist Sekyi Brown Reginald, reflecting on the four-year journey since the Lightwave takeover, acknowledges that LHIMS brought improvements in areas such as patient wait times, claims processing, and disease surveillance.
He noted that clinicians at major hospitals like Korle Bu and Komfo Anokye experienced gains in workflow and data integration with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
Yet, he noted that these gains came at a steep cost: the complete displacement of homegrown digital health solutions, some of which had been tailored to local clinical environments and built over years without state support. But for Reginald, the real crisis is structural.
“The heart of the crisis lies not just in Lightwave’s limitations but in the structural decision to sideline competition, ignore interoperability standards, and marginalize the National Information Technology Agency (NITA). NITA: the statutory body created under Act 771 to guide ICT infrastructure development across the public sector.
“NITA was never meant to be a spectator in Ghana’s digital transformation. It is charged with ensuring national platforms are secure, interoperable, and locally sustained. Yet, even as the Ministry of Health locked in Lightwave as the sole EMR provider, NITA’s role was diluted to the point of irrelevance.”
Sekyi Brwon Reginald, Pharmacist
Comprehensive Overhaul
The renowned Pharmacist thus called for a comprehensive overhaul of Ghana’s e-health governance model, arguing that replacing Lightwave with another vendor without resolving the underlying governance void would simply repeat the same mistakes.
Instead, what the country needs is a robust framework based on four principles: interoperability, decentralisation, institutional oversight, and local capacity development.
Without these pillars, Reginald contended that any digital health solution, regardless of the vendor, will be inherently fragile and unsustainable.
A key policy anchor in this debate, according to Reginald, is Strategic Objective 6 of the Ghana Health Service’s Digital Health Strategy, which emphasises the need to strengthen governance, coordination, and oversight in digital health implementation.
“This objective underscores the importance of establishing robust institutional frameworks and regulatory mechanisms to guide the development and implementation of digital health initiatives.
“The recent challenges associated with the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) highlight the consequences of inadequate governance structures.”
Sekyi Brwon Reginald, Pharmacist
Without clear oversight and coordination, Reginald argued that the health sector is vulnerable to fragmented systems, vendor lock-ins, and disruptions in service delivery.
In this regard, he called for reinforcing governance and coordination mechanisms that are essential to ensure that digital health solutions are effectively integrated, sustainable, and aligned with national health objectives.
Moreover, the pharmacist urged the government to reinvest in Ghana’s domestic health-tech ecosystem, arguing that before Lightwave’s exclusivity, local developers had built and maintained platforms in public hospitals, often at low cost and with little recognition.
According to him, these firms brought not only technical expertise but a deeper understanding of the local healthcare context. For Reginald, their forced exit under the Lightwave regime undermined innovation, eliminated competition, and stifled employment opportunities in a critical growth sector.
Additionally, Sekyi Brown Reginald advocated the restoration of NITA’s role as a regulatory authority as a necessary step.
He pointed out that the 2010 National e-Health Strategy already mandated adherence to the e-Government Interoperability Framework, which would ensure transparency and technical coherence across all digital health platforms.
For him, any procurement, deployment, or upgrade of health information systems must go through a NITA-led process that aligns with national policy and ensures security, sustainability, and value for money.
Calls for Smooth Transition
Crucially, the health professional and policy expert warned against abrupt transitions, insisting that the discontinuation of LHIMS without robust contingency systems could jeopardise millions of patient records, delay care, and compromise emergency interventions.
Instead, he advocated a phased migration strategy led by an independent digital health task force comprising technologists, NITA officials, public health experts, and end-users.
This task force would oversee a smooth exit from the Lightwave era while coordinating the integration of interoperable systems across all health facilities.
For Reginald, Ghana’s future in digital health depends not just on the tools it adopts, but on the governance architecture that powers them.
He summed up by stating that what lies ahead is an opportunity—perhaps the only one in a generation—to rebuild the digital foundations of Ghana’s public health system.
But to seize it, he charged, policymakers to shed the legacy of unilateralism, embrace institutional accountability, and ensure that digital transformation serves the people, not just the powerful.
As argued, rebuilding a truly plural, resilient, and locally empowered digital health ecosystem from the ruins of a monopolised model is a unique opportunity presented by this disruptive moment.
Ghana needs to take advantage of this opportunity for the sake of its democratic governance’s legitimacy as well as the health system’s integrity.
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