Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) a coordinated electronic medical record (EHR) system intended to convey proficient and powerful medical care in the country for the two patients and wellbeing organizations, has anyway become debilitating to a few medical care laborers and patients the nation over.
Hospitals operating the LHIMS have relocated from utilizing manual envelopes to a computerized programming, a move that has improved on information the board all the more securely and safely.
The LHIMS has been broadly acknowledged and promoted as a unique advantage on the grounds that the critical difficulties in the wellbeing the board framework, for example, missing patient records or patients failing to remember their envelopes at home during crises have been tended to. Additionally, the days when records of patients and case accounts existed in storehouses are no more.
Be that as it may, the unpredictable framework disappointments and organization free time difficulties are somewhat dragging out turnover time and making duplication of work for medical care laborers as opposed to lessening it altogether. On days that the framework is running effectively, holding up time is without a doubt decreased by around 50% and tasks continue without a hitch, however the inverse likewise occurs between a few days seven days in some wellbeing offices, particularly those external the local capitals.
An IT master and LHIMS professional at the Korle-Bu Showing Clinic focused on that the LHIMS has shown a type of shortcoming and provokes that try to subvert the conveyance of further developed medical care administrations in different pieces of the country. The occasional organization personal time experienced at the execution end has brought about delays and long lines once in a while at the short term Divisions (OPD) Drug stores and record work areas of the carrying out medical clinics.
These variables consolidate to overcome one of the primary purposes for which the framework was presented, simplicity of information assortment and quicker administration conveyance.
Regardless, tributes from offices that utilization the LHIMS showed that it has upgraded patient data information the board, and income assortment among different activities of these medical clinics. Consequently, it has cultivated simplicity and practicality in getting to patients' wellbeing records, having patients' records follow them from administration highlight administration point consistently, following the income age process, and tending to detailing needs, all in a got framework.
With the LHIMS stage, a patient's cell phone number, LHIMS ID number, or Public Medical coverage Plan (NHIS) number, once caught into the framework can be utilized to get to the individual's wellbeing data for therapy with practically no prerequisite of an envelope. This isn't restricted to the patient's essential emergency clinic yet to whatever other office that utilizes the framework the nation over.
Directed in 2018, the LHIMS was endorsed in 2019 for execution and has since been sent in every one of the six showing emergency clinics, 10 local emergency clinics, 243 area clinics, three mental emergency clinics, and 50 polyclinics as well as other wellbeing places across the 16 districts of Ghana.
As of November 2024, only five years into the undertaking, it was assessed that 21 million patients have been caught into the framework, and work is progressing to select other wellbeing places and Local area Based Wellbeing Arranging and Administrations (CHPS) compounds the nation over.
Pastor of Wellbeing, at the hour of LHIMS initiation in 2024, Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, featured a few critical accomplishments of the framework, which included better clinical navigation, income spillage business, following of medical clinic tasks by heads, upgraded management and checking from the territorial wellbeing directorate, and decrease in understanding holding up time at short term wards by around 50%.
That in any case, the whimsical framework disappointment and organization free time as referenced before has turned into a worst thing about the presence for LHIMS end clients, particularly the medical caretakers who are the primary purpose in call inside the patient information gathering and records check process at wellbeing offices. In some wellbeing offices from the territorial capitals, patients are once in a while turned down and requested to report the following day because of a framework breakdown.
The B&FT's checks with a portion of the top medical clinics in Accra like Korle-Bu Showing Clinic, the Accra Local Emergency clinic - Edge, and Ledzokuku Metropolitan Gathering (LeKMA) Clinic showed that LHIMS is working flawlessly with nearly non-existent framework challenges. The couple of encounters are typically tended to by the LHIMS sub-group of the IT division inside a couple of moments to hours in a conditions to reestablish administration.
Yet, checks with wellbeing offices outside the capitals uncovered an alternate pattern. The circumstance at offices including Ankafu Infection and General Medical clinic, Anfoega Catholic Medical clinic, and Sunyani Metropolitan Medical clinic shows that external the public capital, the organization challenge is more flighty and risky.
The Korle-Bu Circumstance
A accountant at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Belinda Padi, imparted her experience to LHIMS expressing that her specialty communicates with the stage from the income age point where charging is finished on the LHIMS stage. A charge is produced for the client and the receipt of installment from the client at the in-house banks is credited into the framework to reflect in the patient's records and for bookkeeping.
She added that organization challenges are seldom recorded and it requires between 30 minutes to around three hours greatest and it happens a couple of times in an entire year. She reviewed that main on around three to four events did it require very nearly an entire day.
"At Korle-Bu, when there is an organization disappointment, the LHIMS group illuminates the different divisions about the test and if conceivable, how long it will require for reclamation. On the off chance that it will take under three hours patients are made to trust that the framework will be reestablished, notwithstanding, assuming it will take more time than that, divisions are made to proceed manual cycles and later moved onto the stage.
"Thus, we in the bookkeeping division record in our books installment subtleties when the framework is down and later accommodate the figures then move them onto the LHIMS stage. During these periods sit tight time turns out to be longer for patients and we likewise accomplish twofold work by moving the information unto the framework when the framework is reestablished, yet this isn't continuous," she said.
Wellbeing Offices Outside the Capital
At the Ankaful Disease and General Medical clinic, Cape Coast-Focal Locale, for example, regardless of the simplicity of operationalising the LHIMS as indicated by the attendants, they are in some cases left disappointed with the regular framework closures since this implies twofold work for them.
"At Ankafu, we have what is known as the Affirmation and Release (A&D) book. In this way, at whatever point we experience framework disappointment, we utilize the A&D book to take the patient records then we move them into the framework when it is reestablished. At times the framework can be off for the entire little while," a medical caretaker said on secrecy.
She made sense of additional that booking clients on the LHIMS stage resembles composing on the PC. At the point when the PC goes off without saving the work everything could go off relying upon the reinforcement limit of the gadget.
"Sadly, with the LHIMS, you can save when you are finished taking the expected data for a patient, thus, when the organization goes off in the process you lose everything for that specific case and need to begin once more, so rather than saving time, it's fairly dragging out the functional time," she added.
Somewhere else, at the Anfoega Catholic Clinic, Volta Locale, an executive referenced that practically everyday some degree of organization challenge is capable and in most horrendously awful circumstances, it goes off for around a few days consistently.
Addressing mitigative variables set up to guarantee the activity isn't disturbed, she said, "We make do to take care of crises regardless of the framework challenges yet different patients coming in for customary check-ups need to pause. We utilize the old manual paper envelopes to take records for crises and other important cases. Later this information is moved onto the LHIMS when the framework has returned to business as usual," she expressed.
A medical caretaker at a similar office, Clara Ibrahim, additionally referenced that when the organization is down for like an entire day, the responsibility becomes unpleasant as the following day staff needs to compare between going to new clients and entering the earlier day's records into the framework which could likewise be tedious.
The benefit of the framework is that client information once saved is protected as issues of clients losing their envelopes or erroneously failing to remember their information in the house in the midst of crisis are addressed.
Likewise, in the event that one goes to an alternate city, and necessities to get to medical care, the information can be effectively gotten to.
"We favor the LHIMS to the manual since it makes our work simpler in any case, the continuous organization issues are fairly drawing out turnover time on such days as opposed to lessening it altogether like we experience on great days," she said.
A Senior Official of the Ghana Migration Administration (GIS), who talked on obscurity at the Sunyani City Medical clinic in the Bono District, shared that inside the year 2024, she has encountered a framework breakdown on around three unique events when she visited the emergency clinic and need to sit tight for a really long time.
"On one specific case, I was approached to return home and come the following day yet I didn't on the grounds that I addressed a specialist companion who endorsed a medications for me to purchase from the drug store," she said.
The Vision for LHIMS
Previous VP of Ghana, November 2024, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, at the authority send off of the Service of Wellbeing (MoH) Electronic-Task drive repeated that LHIMS had helped for simple patient record convenientce, wiped out manual record keeping, further developed income accumulations, and precise accommodation of NHIS claims, diminished holding up time, further developed admittance to significant pestilence data quickly and empowered early discovery of sickness outbreaks among others.
He additionally referenced the public authority's arrangement to coordinate the records of the patients with the public recognizable proof framework, yet that is yet to produce results.
The Center Organization Margin time Challenge
At the core of LHIMS activity is a devoted organization free of internet providers given by the telcos yet sadly, the organization likewise encounters a few difficulties intermittently.
The variables answerable for this, as indicated by the LHIMS master, incorporate power supply inability to the organization gadgets, harmed links, and link connectors, as well as actual harm to arrange gadgets.
To resolve these issues, he proposed constant infrastructural backing to guarantee progressed or cutting edge network support gear use, and furthermore, to work on the compensation of committed staff to offer 24-hour help to the organization, particularly equipment and power supply.
Stretch out LHIMS to low-level wellbeing offices.
Previous Wellbeing Pastor, Dr. Okoe-Boye, in November 2024, referenced that work is continuous to convey the LHIMS to other Wellbeing Communities and CHPS Mixtures the nation over yet checks demonstrate that this is yet to produce results.
Taking into account the advantages and benefits framed by the wellbeing offices utilizing the framework, like fast and simple admittance to patient clinical records at all degrees of treatment, decrease of human blunders in information procurement, and further developed income assortment precision, extending it to these offices will remain to help their activities altogether, working on the productivity of tasks.
In any case, taking into account that these low-level focuses are considerably more denied as far as innovation and high level computerized framework, the difficulties recognized by the current clients should be addressed fittingly to stay away from outrageous effect on these more modest offices.
Having said that, as a computerized public great (DPG), LHIMS should be made open to all residents independent of area. This will empower individuals in distant networks that just approach CHPS compound to likewise get away from the difficulty of missing wellbeing records in the event of crises and they end up at a greater office.
This report is created as a feature of the DPI Africa News-casting Partnership Program, a joint effort between the Media Starting point for West Africa and Co-Create.