As a way of harnessing the potentials of technology in keeping patients medical records across hospitals, Ekiti State government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Helium health and Sterling Bank to digitalise secondary healthcare facilities in the state.
Speaking at the ceremony held at the Data Bank, Ministry of Health, Ekiti State Secretariat, Ado-Ekiti on Thursday and witnessed by top government functionaries, the management team of Helium health, officials of supporting bank among other critical stakeholders, the commissioner for health and human services, Oyebanji Fulani, who represented the state government, thanked the partners, describing the feat as a significant milestone for improved service delivery in the state.
Fulani said, “Today sets a significant milestone for improved service delivery in our state through this public partnership that we have. For us, improving the quality of services and performances in the healthcare system is pivotal to improving healthcare delivery and enhancing patients’ outputs.
“By improving the process of healthcare delivery, we reduce chances of wastages, failures and redundancies. Quality improvement is central to a lot of the things that we do because it assures that we have a better health outcome in the state.”
He also seized the opportunity of the event to enumerate all the various efforts of the state government at improving the health sector in the state.
In his remarks, the leader of Helium health delegation, Abiola Oshunniyi, said the company will through the partnership leverage strength of the private sector including efficiency, technology competencies, and experience that has been in the private sector to be able to strengthen government service delivery process.
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Oshunniyi, who is the head, Regional Growth (Public Sector), further disclosed that the company will inject over N300 million into the state secondary healthcare facilities as a pilot within a period of five years with a hope of improving thereafter.
“In terms of partnership, we are looking at investing a little over N300 million into the state because we are looking and starting with four health care facilities and those facilities will be upgraded with our digital systems. Those digital systems will then optimise the service delivery workflow.
“Our focus is how to begin to help use our electronic systems, one of our core critical strengths which is our Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system where you can digitalise the facility end to end.
“So, from the point of entry of the patients to the point where the patient goes out, we have digitise the process in the sense that, if a patient enters into a facility and by just mention of the patient’s name or even his phone number, his health record can be retrieved and critical information to help in treatment would be accessed for the doctor or healthcare worker to work with.
“More so, data is required for the government to make decisions around budget, so, with this measure, it is easy for the government to go to historical data which may currently not be available because they are in paper format.
“We are here to leverage the strength of the private sector including efficiency, technology competences, and experience that has been in the private sector to be able to strengthen the government service delivery process.
“In terms of partnership, we are looking at investing a little over N300 million into the state because we are looking and starting with four health care facilities and those facilities will be upgraded with our digital systems. Those digital systems will then optimise the service delivery workflow.
“Gradually, our hope and target is to be able to improve those facilities as a pilot, then extend to other facilities as that grows, so that creates a proof of consent and value propositions.
“We have been doing this in a lot of private sector space as we are in over 470 private healthcare facilities including government facilities around the country; we are bringing experience from all those facilities and our experience in working around five different continents to Ekiti to see how we can improve that quality of service delivery through the partnership.
From our analysis and understanding, secondary facilities do more of the work of both primary and tertiary facilities. So, we are to optimise the service delivery process and also work with the government to see how that policy framework can be optimised so that we can see the areas other interventions can start.”
Also speaking, the representative of sterling bank, Ibironke Akinmade, the Group Head, health, said the aim of the MoU is to allow for digitalisation of hospitals in Ekiti State to allow for more wellbeing of the residents.
She assured that the partnership will make medical access easier for the residents by just mentioning their names or giving their phone numbers; they will have access to their medical records to aid treatment.
“This will reduce leakages, provide access, visibility, data engagement such that people will have better medical facilities in the state,” she said.
