A nationwide electronic medical record and patient management system has officially been launched by the Ghana Ministry Of Health.
All agencies under the Ministry of Health including the Food and Drugs Authority and Ghana Health service will be networked with all hospitals, clinics and community health centres in Ghana.
The electronic medical system will include a healthcare infrastructure solution, a centralised data centre and a 24-hour data recovery unit. All this will be executed by a company called Lightwave eHealthcare Services.
The company will develop a real-time bio-surveillance System for fighting against outbreaks or the spread of communicable diseases. An early warning system will also be developed to help identify the source of a disease to enable measures to be deployed in case of a pending epidemic.
Advantages Of Electronic Health System
Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, stated at the launch, that the system would be capable of sharing patient information electronically with other healthcare providers.
He also indicated that the electronic health records would provide an easy-to-use interface for doctors and health workers to undertake their duties including history taking, performing medical examinations, and other patient management related duties.