On behalf of my team I can humbly say that we now have a fully Integrated Hospital Information Management Software (HIMS) designed specifically for the Ghanaian environment by Ghanaians and easily customisable to meet any requirement anywhere in the world.
It is a fully paperless Hospital Information Management of which Electronic Health Records (EHR) is a subset. Among other key issues addressed, we designed this system to have greater and more seamless flow of information within a digital healthcare infrastructure (laboratory autoanalysers, CT Scans, MRIs, X-rays, Ultrasounds etc). Communication with other systems such as NHIS and other insurance companies, institutions for claim submission is just few clicks away.
37 Military Hospital and 9 Trust Hospitals have been using it for few years now. Implementation underway at the new Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge) and the University of Ghana Medical Centre.
No two hospitals operate the same way. We therefore design our system to meet specific needs of each hospital. From our experiences as custom software developers, this makes change management much easier as end-users are “already familiar with the new system”. For example our nurses’ charts are digitised and the patients’ vitals automatically plotted on the same red graph paper they are used to. An added advantage of having vitals e.g. BP plotted over a long period alongside the various antihypertensives administered over the period. This is a treasure trove to physicians (with respect to patient care), researchers, public health professionals etc. The broader effect on lowering cost to the NHIS and the national budget cannot be over-emphasised.
We are always enhancing our Hospital Information Management System as we listen to inputs from end-users. Quality, they say, is a moving target. We will keep chasing it so that our healthcare providers including managers concentrate on their core jobs whilst technology makes life much easier for them.
We would be having a number of HIMS across Ghana and this is good once a standard is spelt out for all providers. Leveraging an EHR across the continuum of care is vital as it allows for better integration among providers by improving information sharing. Take for example I travel from Accra to Paga and collapse there. My National ID can be used to access my medical records (though a different HIMS system may be used at Paga clinic). My past medical records including allergies, drug history etc can be accessed. In other words, EHR systems can decrease fragmentation of care by improving care coordination and enhancing patient care. We took this into consideration when designing our Electronic Health Records. We studied the Ghanaian environment for several years whilst implementing various components of HIMS in many facilities as far back as 2004 to enable us have a comprehensive solution. We now have a well tested system end-users can smile about.
Below is a table listing some of the modules that we have in our HIMS. There may be the need for hospital management to satisfy requirements of international accreditation bodies. Once these are known we can easily incorporate them into the system. Besides, requirements of these accreditation bodies change with time.
No.
Item/Module
1
Patient Registration and Appointment Scheduling Module
2
Outpatient Management Module
3
Doctors workbench/ CPOE [ICD 10]
4
Electronic Medical Records [EMR]
5
Laboratory Information System
6
Pharmacy Module
7
Radiology Management Module
8
Inpatient and Ward Management
9
Emergency Management (NICU, ICU etc)
10
Dietary Module
11
House Keeping Module
12
Medical Equipment Management Module
13
Asset Management Module
14
Financial Accounting (Hospital Specific)
15
General Stores/ Inventory Management
16
Patient Billing and Insurance Module
17
Nursing Module
18
Blood Bank
19
CSSD
20
Services & User Manager Module (security module)
21
MIS Dashboard
22
Datalink Connectivity and software component for 20 Lab Analysers
23
Connectivity module to PACs
24
Ambulance Services
25
Mortuary Module
26
Theatre Module
27
Bio-medical Waste Management
28
Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Module
29
Casualty and Emergency Management
30
Human Resource Management
This application is designed by a team of Ghanaians with expertise in software engineering, healthcare delivery, healthcare management, HR, finance etc. The inputs from staff of 37 Military Hospital, Trust Hospitals (nine satellite hospitals) within Accra and Tema over the years; Ridge Hospital and the UG Medical Centre had been invaluable. We will continue to learn from end-users for continuous improvement.
One of the best ways of demonstrating a software application is seeing it working in a much complex environment. 37 Military Hospital would make a good to visit.
We look forward to answering your questions and hopefully working with your institution to improve quality in healthcare for our patients.
Sylva Vortia
+233 (0) 20 433 00 35
+233 (0) 24 409 87 81
