Kwaku Agyeman-Manu the Minister for Health, has disclosed that government will digitize the health sector before the end of the year.
He further noted that government is currently putting measures in place to ensure health facilities nationwide are connected to the paperless system. Once this is achieved, he intimated it will make healthcare easily accessible to all.
The sector minister further revealed that records of patients will be integrated under a single digital database. With this, the database of the patient can be accessed by any hospital that a patient visit.
Mr. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu made this revelation at the launch of the digital platform of the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency in Accra.
“Before the end of the year and I will say maybe soon, you will see efforts to get the health sector digitized. Health delivery systems are going to do better. Patients will have only one folder no matter where they are.
“If they [patients] are moving from Sunyani Regional Hospital to Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, they do not have to carry their folder. Their data and records will be saved and monitored by a doctor”.
The system will also allow doctors and administrators access to information for effective health delivery.
NPP to deliver on digitized healthcare
In 2017, the Ministry of Health launched a national E-Health project and bio-Surveillance system to link public hospitals and clinics to a common database.
Speaking at the launch of the system in November 2017, Mr. Agyeman-Manu, noted that the system had the ability to detect forged insurance cards and dubious claims.
He stated that the New Patriotic Party captured the vision of e-health in in their manifesto. With this, it was just a matter of time the full potential of the promise was achieved. It also included the phasing out of the manual processing of claims; which stood at about 90 percent.
Operationalization of the digital platform
At the time, the system was operational in 26 health institutions across the country. Also, the service point of the e-health was linked to the revenue and claims system. This has expedited the process leading to processing of claims automatically on a patient-to-patient basis.
Mr. Agyeman-Manu further explained that sharing patient information electronically with healthcare providers was relevant in “improving patient safety”.
He further disclosed that doctors held accurate and comprehensive information about their patients that has been progressively built up over time. But currently, these are held in folders that are stored in cardboard boxes and sometimes on corridors in our health facilities.
He also insisted that the electronic health system had a key design feature which provided an easy-to-use interface for doctors and health workers, to undertake their clinicals.
Also, the platform helped patient management tasks like history taking, performing medical examinations, assessing information, and making diagnoses.
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