The health sector entirely has been dwindling in the prolong challenges that makes it hard for a common citizen to get access to healthcare they deserve for years. Many have gone through immeasurable hardships whenever they -- or their relatives -- are sick. Some even lost their lives not only because of arriving the hospital late but also accessibility to their files or long registration.
Saving lives in emergency is one of the ethics all health workers agree upon. However, people from far places especially those from remote villages or local clinics undergo tedious processes before they are finally diagnosed by doctors.
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH) after critical observation of the prolonged years of hardship in line with its vision mission, came-up with developmental idea, primarily for the benefit of healthcare providers and patients as well as relatives or people that take their wards to the hospital.
For decades, people have been complaining about over congestion at card registration unit, hardship at banks when paying medical bills, long overdue of laboratory results, missing hardcopies of patient's medical records, uncertainties of getting doctors on ground during consultations, less data for those conducting researches and absence of centralized information of all medical and non-medical staff of the Teaching Hospital; these among other predicament of the people is what prompted the management to start the e-health system, Though the hospital started deploying EMR infrastructure since 2015, however, some challenges hindered the progress of the process.
Now, the management of the hospital with the supports and encouragements from the Federal Ministry of Health and Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) have optimized the system to ensure that the set goals are achieved.
Interestingly, the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is aimed at changing the narratives and problems being encountered by the staff, patients and their relatives from the time they are admitted up till the discharging day.People from villages that lost their cards have nothing to worry about as their details are stored in the hospital’s data bank.
Similarly, with the development of EMR, students and lecturers that carryout final year projects as well as those doing researches, will get data necessary for smooth researches.
The system will pave way for everyone irrespective of gender, age or geographical location to access efficient healthcare within short span of time, putting a halt to the various problems encountered.
The Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH) is now at global scale aiming to achieve excellence. The Hospital has various ongoing projects; some notable include the New Family Medicine complex, the O&G complex, the surgery complex and the procurement of modern devices and machines used by international hospitals.
Some of the reasons that make people go abroad for medical checkup such as unavailability of sophisticated equipment and proficient health care personnel, have now been addressed.
The system is upgraded to the global standards which can now confidently compete with them.
Lastly, health details of all patients is confidential except when required by governments’ authorities through formal processes; E-health has come to better the healthcare for all.
Usman Abdullahi Koli
Head, PR unit
ATBU TH Bauchi.
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