Digital medical records to cut costs and improve services, says PS

Kenyans should expect cheaper and better healthcare once health records are computerised, the Ministry of Information and Communication permanent secretary has said.

Digital medical records will help cut costs by eliminating duplication of tests as patients’ records will be available online.

“This is coming. There is nothing you will do to stop it,” said Dr Bitange Ndemo (pictured) , the Information ministry PS, when he addressed the annual Kenya Medical Association Scientific Conference last week.

Dr Ndemo said that a pilot programme was underway at the Kenyatta National Hospital to prepare for a nationwide roll out of an e-health strategy that will also include an electronic medical supplies procurement system aimed at making buying goods more efficient and cheaper.

Digital medical records will also be crucial in providing statistics necessary to show disease trends and prevalence rates and thus help forecast potential outbreaks.

Such health records will be stored at a national data centre, providing medical researchers with an opportunity to consult with doctors in other countries and share best practices as well as new knowledge in the health profession.

However, there are privacy concerns as online health records may be seen by unauthorised people and affect the traditional doctor-patient relationship.

The programme will make it possible to access doctors’ professional resumes and achievements such as specialisation, research, number of surgeries done, and how many of their patients have died.

Bureaucracy

Dr Ndemo said that it would take at least a year to digitise records at the national referral hospital, probably longer due to government bureaucracy.

The PS said that the project — which involves converting health records in the country to soft copy and inter-linking health centres — would be funded through a public-private partnership. “Pharma is willing to put their money in the project because it helps with their research and development,” said Lulu Waitara of Lulu Medical Group.

Dr Waitara said that doctors in Kenya make medical decisions based on data from other countries, which is not representative of the local patient profile as disease strands and drug efficiency levels are affected by geographical settings.

Dr Simon Mwangi, a general practitioner based in Nakuru, agrees. “We have been looking for this new technology, it should have been here yesterday,” he said.

He decried the fact that some software producers develop applications without seeking input from doctors, which means that the solutions don’t include all the data doctors need.