eHealth Nigeria’s EMR System

eHealth Nigeria has created an Electronic Medical Record System specific for Nigerian health care. We have transformed the national reports, many state reports, and health facility cards from paper forms into computerized forms. Our EMR system can be used at small Primary Health Care centers, General Hospitals, Teaching Hospitals, and Private Facilities. It can be used by government (federal or state), NGOs, or private providers.

eHealth Nigeria’s EMR Components

eHealth Nigeria’s EMR contains many different componenets that aid health care workers in making better medical decisions and administration in the management of health facilities. The following list contains a description of the most important and most useful EMR components which are all pre-installed into eHealth Nigeria’s EMR system.

1. Patient Identification Numbers/ Patient ID Cards
Generating unique Patient IDs is an important part of any enterprise EMR system. eHealth Nigeria’s EMR produces unique IDs at each point of registration, automatically prints ID cards with bar-codes, and eliminates any wait time associated with finding patient history.

The EMR system can manage multiple IDs for each patient, ensuring that existing patient history will not be lost during a transition to computer-based ID generation.
2. Security and Staff Roles
Security is a major concern when working with medical information. In order to make these facilities data secure, many different encoding and password protections will be put on the system. The following is the basic security platform:

  • Password protected network
  • Encrypted wireless network
  • Password protected computers
  • Role-based access for Staff to limit Access to Information

To use the EMR, staff will be assigned a unique login and password.  This login will determine what information and functions are available to each user.  This allows for decreased complexity for users (ie staff only see what they need to), increase privacy for patients, and better overall security management for the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.

3. Laboratory Data Management
Electronically transmitted laboratory results allow for simple communication between laboratories and clinics. The ability to send key laboratory data over a web-based system can significantly reduce delays in diagnosis and treatment. Electronic mail, while viable in small volumes, is severely limited as a method of data transfer, as it lacks both organization and appropriate levels of security.

4. Synchronization
A synhronization tool is needed to link separate EMR installations. This is useful for sites that do not have internet access or have very slow connections. They can run their own EMR, enter and view data on their local networked server and get a fast, efficient response from the system. In the background, the EMR sends all the data updates to the main server at a central site. The central server does the monitoring and reporting for all sites.
5. Medical Charting
This is used to graph data which is easier to analyze when shown in a graphical form. For example, you can graph a childs’ height vs. weight to determine if the child is malnuriced.  After height and weight is entered, the historical information of patient weight and height at each visit is presented in table format. The module can also display historical information in chart format, showing the height and weight of patients over time and juxtaposing the values against WHO statistical norms.
The advantages of implementing a chart module are:

  • Easy entry by care providers in real time and cuts down data entry errors.
  • The historical table and chart provide information to clinicians which improves patient care.
  • Creates buy in by providers who want access to tables and charts, encouraging consistent use of the EMR.

 

6. HIV/AIDS Regimen Module

This is designed to support the dispensing of ARV drugs in the public health care sector. It supports pharmacists in their important role of dispensing accurately to an increasing number of patients whilst still being able to engage and assist the patient. The intelligent Dispensing of ART software is used by the pharmacist to manage the supplies of ARV stocks, print reports and manage collection of drugs by patients. The software is also designed to address the reporting requirements of Government, international funders (such as PEPFAR) and internal clinical data such as identifying patients who are have not collected their medication for an extended period of time.

7. Reporting
The Reporting Module was designed to provide a feature-rich and user-friendly web interface for managing health reports. In addition, the Reporting Module is flexible customizable so that MOH’s, NGO’s, and researchers can all use the medical data to find the information that they need. Creation of a Universal Report that will be filled by every health facility will allow for a better understanding of the different health needs across Nigeria.

Data from the EMR can also be input into other Reporting software such as Excel of SPSS in order to create more advanced or more specific reports.

8. Billing Module
This module allows a clerk the ability to capture the orders from the doctor pertaining to pharmacy, diagnostic tests, in-patient admission, discharge and any other types of order. This module captures this information and creates a receipt of payment for the patient, which the patient then carries to the concerned department. The billing module will reduce billing errors and allow for easier monetary analysis for administration.

9. Patient Flags Module
The Patient Flags module allows users to create of “flags” that generate warning messages in the Patient Dashboard. You can set flags to alert a doctor if a pregnant woman has high blood pressure, if an HIV patient has a high CDC count, or if a child has a low body weight. These alerts will help doctors to recognize warning signs and give patients better care.