Good to digitise our health infrastructure

The government has begun rolling out an integrated healthcare solution with a centralised data recovery system to serve as an infrastructure platform for a patient-centred healthcare solution.

The system is expected to integrate all public healthcare infrastructure in the country and provide an early warning system to help identify the source of a disease which will enable quarantine measures to be deployed before it becomes an epidemic.

This is expected to improve the country’s health infrastructure and make it a reference point for facilitating access to diagnosis and treatment through the centralised knowledge and experience to be made available by the data repository that would be created under the project.

The delivery of healthcare services in the country has been under pressure and is expected to change, and no one can be certain of how the industry will evolve.

What is certain is that future trends in health care will be driven by access to data that will shape new models of care in driving innovation, affordability and accessibility across the country.

The transition to digital health care offers opportunities to aggregate patient data from multiple sources to provide a single, accurate patient profile.

The system, which integrates with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), enables the development of a patient management system – this will streamline the admission, discharge and transfer process of health care.

For us, putting a digital core at the heart of a healthcare provider can result in the checking of medical records faster during preparation and post-processing of ward rounds in hospitals.

The focus is on the public health system to deliver healthcare services that improve patient outcomes at the most optimal cost.

We at the Daily Graphic believe that technology will make a real difference in supporting access to care because the shortfall in global healthcare professionals means doctors and healthcare staff are often overworked.

All over the world, digital transformation of the healthcare industry is enabling healthcare professionals to recreate their work. Individual health facilities and patients who use such facilities can testify to the efficiency of such digital data facilities.

We are inspired to see how the combination of expert research, local knowledge and modern technology can make an immediate and invaluable impact on the welfare of our citizens and even more excited that the deployment of new digital tools allows hospitals to automate repetitive administrative tasks while allowing healthcare professionals to also get the best from their professional training and focus on patient care.

With such intense competition for healthcare talent at a global level, allowing doctors and specialists to focus on their highest value activities, such as diagnosis, treatment and care, puts hospitals in a great position to attract and retain scarce skills.

The rollout of the technology could not have come at a better time.

We are hopeful that when this innovation is successfully deployed, it will make our health infrastructure leapfrog some of the challenges in healthcare delivery to our citizens.