An expert on digital health on Friday says more medical directors are resorting to the use of a digital process to block leakages, generate revenues and reduce patients’ waiting time in hospitals.
The Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Cranium Integrated Solutions Limited, Kunle Adesida, made the clarification at a one-day stakeholders summit on Rehabilitation and Prevention of Recidivism in Abuja.
With the advent of the Internet and electronic documentation of patients’ details in Electronic Medical Records, many hospitals in Nigeria are beginning to adopt the system.
But Adesida, a recipient of the ‘Face of Hope Healthcare Innovation’ award, believed Nigerian health facilities can do more in terms of the speed at which patients are attended to with digital medical records in Nigeria.
He said, “I always tell people that digitalization is cheaper than using paper-bill care. This is because hospital administrators would have saved themselves the money spent in buying continuation sheets that doctors used in taking notes, prescription papers and hospital cards in the long run. There won’t be any need to continuously order all these things again once the health system is digitalised.
“Again, it blocks leakages because by using a paper system, there are different ways hospital managers lose internally generated revenue. But if you digitalise, there is no way drugs can go missing again from shelves. Funds that should be paid by patients and third parties through health insurance will come into the right purse.
“If all these monies come in regularly without diversion, you will discover that the clinic or hospital’s IGR will experience a huge lift and have enough funding to leverage growth. That is because the leakages have been plugged,” he said.
One of the earliest government-owned hospitals to take advantage of the Electronic Medical Record to replace patients’ cards and paper files technology in the country is the Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Metta.
An Electronic Medical Record system is a unique toolkit that helps create a unique database of patients’ medical information, such as medical history, future appointments, current medications and allergies.
It aims to create easy access to patients’ records irrespective of where the patient is accessing care, while it also reduces or cuts out, outright, unproductive waiting hours associated with the retrieval of files, lab results and X-ray activities, the stress associated with illegible handwriting, and prescription errors. It also makes for better patient file management.
An excited Adesida argued that the world including developing nations has begun to appreciate the advantage of digital healthcare following the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is even as the expert said more clinicians are beginning to appreciate attending to patients remotely including in rural areas through telemedicine.
Telemedicine is a process where digital stations are set up at various locations whether in bigger hospitals, small clinic hubs in supermarts or malls with experts standing by.
He said, “This way, patients in remote areas can be attended to. All that would be required is login details to have direct access to clinicians who would assess the situation and offer professional advice from the other end.
“But if it gets to a level where the patient needs to be moved physically, he can be referred to other facilities that can continue the care from that point.”
Asked whether patients won’t be made to pay more to cover the cost of the digitalisation drive, the expert said it is the fear that arises whenever an Old Order is about to give way to innovation.
“I disagree that it may put an additional payment burden on patients. They get to make the same payment as their normal consultation fee, even when it is digitalized. It has nothing to do with the patient. As a matter of fact, it is of more benefit to the patients because the waiting time that piles up while searching for their case files in the archives is eradicated.
“In this case, just your thumbprint, official recognition or even your name is all that is required, depending on the design of the system. This will instantly bring up your case note on the system in less than a second.
“With this, nobody needs to be in a long queue at the reception of any hospital waiting to be called upon. It gives so much relief to patients who can also be given access to their personal health record when they need to visit another hospital in real-time.”
“But we can’t rule out the fact that there is usually an initial teething problem to every innovation. The way it is, people are beginning to buy into the system because they know digitalization is the future of healthcare in Africa and beyond,” he said.
