Since the mid-1990s, said minister, the ministry has been moving forward with the integration of "Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in all the healthcare processes. All the processes starting with patients' registration, clinical documentation, investigations, ordering & results reporting, medication prescription to dispensing, nursing orders, operation's note, and discharge summary are performed using ICT tools. The use of ICT is quite spread in our healthcare institutions".
There are over 140 installations of ICT system in healthcare institutions, including the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary care centres. "In fact, all the major healthcare institutions already use ICT tools for all processes medical, financial and administration to become almost paperless. The target is to complete the computerisation of all the institutions by 2009", said Dr Moosa. All the digital solutions available that can improve the health care activities are being used.
For instance, the SMS is used to inform patients when their appointment has been fixed and also reminding them 24 hours before the appointment. This has tremendously reduced the appointment defaulters, both for operation and outpatient, said the minister.The ICT system has facilitated easy retrieval of patients' records and patients' movements from one department to another including different clinics, laboratory services, and radiological services and even the pharmacy, he added.
Electronic record has made remarkable improvements in, and has ensured continuity of, care of patients by making clinical information readily available to different clinicians in different departments and specialties dealing with the same patient. In addition, this would definitely have important cost savings through preventing duplicate investigations and treatments.
The ministry has also introduced electronic imaging, in its various institutions. The radiology department processes, from capturing the image from modalities to reporting are all electronic and clinicians can review all patients' information electronically. The introduction of ICT tools not only help in substantial cost and time reduction, and are environmentally friendlier but also facilitate the clinicians' work by allowing them to review all the patients' information in one media, giving much more flexibility in diagnosing the patients and also eliminate the risk of losing the film. Patients are, thus, followed up more effectively.
Study is being conducted to determine the feasibility of capturing ultrasound images electronically in the Primary Health Care, said Dr Moosa. On current digital projects, the minister said, "The e-Referral Engine is in its implementation phase and aims to facilitate patients' referral from one level of care to another and from one health care facility to another.
"It is expected to enhance continuity of patients' care through ensuring, using a number of procedures, that back-referral notes from referred institutions reach back to the referring health care facilities". The e-Referral engine will definitely reduce time of the appointment booking process for referred patients, which would have an impact on the care and satisfaction of patients. It is also expected to provide statistics on referrals, as numbers, type, reason of referrals and other parameters that can be analysed to highlight needs for better patients' management.
Also there are a number of notifications that take place within the health sector, including notification about certain communicable diseases and other conditions including notifications of births and deaths. The e-Notification component for such notifications is under development. In this context the ministry is in coordination with other stakeholders such as the Information Technology Authority, Directorate General of Civil Status and Ministry of National Economy as part of the e-Government.
The ministry is also planning to introduce tele-education/telemedicine on a big scale. Because of the high costs and technology involved, a pilot project with the collaboration of Omantel has been conducted, linking five hospitals with the ministry headquarters by high bandwidth fibre optic. Further evaluation of the project is under progress, said the minister.
Improving people's health and well-being
Experts says advances in ICT are leading to a reduction in both the cost and size of sensors, monitors and other equipment thereby allowing the emergence of both novel uses for existing technologies and applications of completely new technologies. Relevant trends in ICT include increasingly pervasive sensing networks, higher processing power and the ability to transfer larger amounts of information more quickly through both wired and wireless systems.
ICT investment in hospitals impacts not only on the hospitals themselves but also on the wider healthcare system. Since healthcare is increasingly specialised and tasks are distributed across a large number of health professionals, there is a need for ensuring continuity of care across departmental interfaces. ICT supports structured communication among clinicians to achieve appropriate healthcare provision. Electronic patient records and web services are two means of improving continuity of care.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Hasan Kamoonpuri
Quelle/Source: Zawya, 11.08.2008
