KENYA – The Nakuru County Government in Kenya has unveiled an electronic health register dubbed Medical Social Work Service Register to help advance collection, storage and analysis of health data, improve data accuracy and increase accountability as well as bolster the tracking of health trends.
The online system will link patients to diverse pool of general medical practitioners and specialists as well as offer information on insurance providers who meet particular needs as well as provide other personal health management tools.
The Medical Social Work Service Register allows patients to access to their medical records online via tablet, smart phone or laptop without being able to alter them while health practitioners are given access to medical records according to their roles in the cycle of patient care.
The health system will also collect information that will be used by the Nakuru County Government to formulate policies or take action such as issuing alerts on outbreaks of the diseases and targeted at improving response time.
Technology is vital in Kenya’s effort to achieve universal health coverage , technology will be one of the major milestones in what will push Kenya and Africa firmly into the future
In addition, the e-register will enable physicians and healthcare administrators to easily manage appointment bookings, medical billing, and prescriptions. It will also offer better guidelines on healthcare and insurance plans.
The electronic health record system will enable patients at the grassroots level to interact remotely with healthcare providers thus averting costs and inconveniences occasioned by travelling while also ensuring that proper records are kept.
Additionally, the Medical Social Work Service Register will be an online database containing information on disease burden by type and location at sub-county level including specialty-wise medical journal publications bearing extensive information on various disease burdens.
The electronic health records system will also be instrumental in improving the efficiency of medical social workers who have been deployed in high volume facilities across all the 11 sub-counties within Nakuru County to help handle important medical social issues.
The e-register comes at a time when technology plays a crucial role in analyzing health trends amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic hence the system will be fitted with a built-in data analytics tool to enable healthcare managers to study and analyze specific diseases such as COVID-19.
Chief Officer for Public Health Services Dr Daniel Wainaina announced that the e-register system launched in Nakuru County will be the first one in the Country to complement the Kenya Health Information System (KHIS) register at the national and county level.
Dr Daniel Wainaina said that patients will have access to a copy of their own health information and will be custodians of whom they will share their information with ,noting that the move will bolster quality care for patients by doctors who will get access to the history of their patient after they consent to that.
“This register will be a benchmark for all the other counties that will adopt to improve the quality of data captured and reported to demonstrate the input and productivity of medical social work,” Chief Officer for Public Health Services Dr Wainaina noted.
He further said that the system will be adopted by relevant healthcare stakeholders for better healthcare planning, improved diagnosis while ensuring more patients have access to health care services and at the same time hospital staff will be enabled to work more efficiently and professionally.
“The inauguration of ‘Medical Social Work Service Register’ is part of the Nakuru County Government’s strategy to prioritize data integration, improve their interface with patients and proactively engage patients and essential healthcare services such as pharmaceutical, laboratory, and radiology,” he added.
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