FG to Digitalise Health Sector, Institute Electronic Medical Record Platform
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Tunji Alausa, has said the Ministry will work towards having a National Electronic Medical Record Platform where all medical facilities will be able to access the records of patients.
He said this will enable patients to be able to use any hospital anywhere in the country without bothering about their records or having to pay for another round of tests.
Speaking at a press conference organised by the Ministry in Abuja on Saturday evening, the Minister said the plan was part of measures to digitalise the health sector in the country for better service delivery.
“Given the mandate of revitalising the health sector, we will begin to digitalise the healthcare system. Data will be collected and we shall make sure they are accurate and up to international standard, this we shall use to delivery health care to the citizens.
“This will also help us know how we are performing. We are going to have a National Electronic Medical Record Platform where all Federal Medical Centres and Primary Healthcare Centres will come under.”
According to the Minister, after a diagnosis of the current state of the sector, they hope to regulate the fragmented system, improve on research and health governance for better outcomes.
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“Firstly, we talked about governance and its various components like accountability, trust, collaboration and making sure Nigerians know we are working for them.
“Wanting to work decisively, we engaged an international consulting firm courtesy of the Coordinating Minister; we got Mackenzie who did a pro bono diagnosis of the health sector after which we came together as a ministry for the way forward because if you don’t have a healthy nation, you cannot have a productive one.
“We talked about the most important issues and committed ourselves on what practicable things we are going to do in the next 3-12months. These are very tenable and we are sure we can achieve them.
“We will be talking and doing more about research. Right now we have a lot of research institutes and they are all working independently. We are going to rejig our research institutions and make them work collaboratively and get them to do what they are meant to do by putting more money. We have a lot of professors in the academia who are struggling because of lack of resources to support their research. We are going to move our research into a more robust, focused and directional one.
“Another thing we will be going differently is regulation of the healthcare system. We will begin to hold our health facilities more accountable. The way it operates now is very fragmented so we will consolidate and unify it,” the Minister said.
The press conference was organised by the Ministry to update the public on the outcome of the three-day Ministerial Briefing Session that took place earlier in the week.
