Gauteng’s New System Enhances Healthcare Quality

In a definitive stride towards addressing a persistent concern, the Gauteng health department has effectively ended the illicit pilfering of medication from hospitals. This decisive move comes from the department’s development of a centralised patient information system that stands poised to revolutionise healthcare operations as reported by News 24.

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As far back as 2020, the department embarked on an ambitious trajectory, announcing its intent to revamp its information technology infrastructure. This endeavour birthed the Health Information System (HIS), a groundbreaking program conceived to elevate service delivery and enhance the overall quality of healthcare provisions.

Among its manifold objectives, the HIS sets its sights on alleviating the long waiting times often experienced in hospitals and community healthcare centres (CHCs). At its core, the HIS operates as a catalyst for streamlined healthcare operations, underpinning its potential to transform the healthcare landscape.

Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, Gauteng Health MEC, stands as a firm advocate for the HIS. According to her, this innovative system is already in its inaugural phase, ushering in tangible improvements across many dimensions within the healthcare domain. The realms of patient administration, file management, and the referrals process have undergone a noticeable enhancement across 37 hospitals and 31 CHCs, all thanks to the implementation of the HIS.

Nkomo-Ralehoko’s articulate insight into the HIS sheds light on its inner workings. The system deftly captures patient records and introduces a unified tracking system—one patient, one comprehensive file. Operating as a bedrock principle, this unification endeavours to circumvent previous challenges, particularly the fraudulent medication collection from disparate healthcare institutions. As Nkomo-Ralehoko states with conviction, “It is game over for people stealing from the public hospitals.” The HIS effectively nullifies this practice, making patient details accessible regardless of which hospital they engage with. In essence, their medical history is securely stored within the system, akin to the familiarity of accessing your bank information from any branch of the same bank across geographical distances.

The HIS’s underlying infrastructure incorporates creating a digital file stored within the cloud. This mechanism seamlessly tracks a patient’s medical trajectory and history, culminating in an efficient and holistic approach to healthcare management.

Healthcare practitioners palpably feel this transformational shift on the frontlines. A Far East Rand Hospital worker attests to the HIS’s tangible impact, particularly in mitigating file loss and facilitating communication across hospitals during moments of electrical load shedding.

Nkomo-Ralehoko underscores the user-friendly nature of the system, which is engineered for intuitive navigation and comprehensibility. Her assertion that the HIS empowers hospital managers to access precise reports and monitor incoming revenue resonates with its potential to enhance patient care and optimise administrative processes.

Looking ahead, Nkomo-Ralehoko unveils an ambitious agenda—integrating the HIS with the Health Patient Registration System. This strategic alignment seeks to eliminate the dual utilisation of systems for patient registration and processing, heralding an era of integrated and seamless healthcare management.

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Photo: Facebook / @Nomantu Nkomo Ralehoko