The Federal Government has disclosed that it will digitalise healthcare by unifying Federal Medical Centres (FMCs) and Primary Health Care (PHCs) electronic medical platforms for effective and efficient healthcare service delivery to Nigerians.
Both the Coordinating Minister of Health, Prof. Ali Pate and the Minister of State for Health, Dr Tunji Alausa of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare while briefing journalists assured that their administration will digitalise Nigeria’s healthcare system.
Alausa said: “We will embark on the digitalisation of our healthcare system because in this age if you don’t have validated data, it’s just like you are still in the dark.
“We need to make sure that the data we collect are accurate, they are validated, they can be trusted internally and locally. That will be used to deliver healthcare to our people.”
“When we have validated data that we can trust, we can begin to see the indices where you are getting better, where you are doing well and where you are not doing well and then, you can direct your interventions to improve those outcomes.
“As part of the digitalisation of our healthcare system, we are going to roll out a National Electronic Medical Record Platform where our primary health care centres and our federal medical centres will come on this same platform.
“As we move into the future, we encourage each state government to use the same platform. Once we have a unified electronic record platform, it becomes easy to start the process of data where you see patients and you can now begin to share data.
While citing instances, Alausa explained that: “Somebody that went to LUTH today and let’s say one or two months later, presents himself at Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Metta, they don’t need to repeat all the test they have done, those tests that were done two, three months ago are available,” the Minister of State for Health.”
“As we continue to build on the digitalisation of our healthcare system, one of the things we are going to be doing differently is also the way we regulate our healthcare system.”
”We have to hold our healthcare facilities more accountable, we have to hold our providers, physicians, and nurses more accountable. The way our healthcare system is being regulated now is very fragmented, we have to consolidate and unify our regulatory system.”
On health research, Alausa regretted that the nation’s research institutions were at the moment working independently, and also gave assurance that the government would rearrange them to work collaboratively.
“Right now, we have our research institutions and everybody is working independently. We will rejig out research institutions, make them work collaboratively and get them to do what they are meant to do.
“We have a lot of professors in the academia that are struggling, they are just by themselves, with no resources for them to support their research projects. And as professors, less than 50 per cent of your work should just be teaching students in the classroom, it’s a lifelong dedication to research.”
“We will unleash our clinical research, traditional research and basic research, we will put more money into research.
As we do more research, we will begin to be independent of the pharmaceuticals, their medical devices and even the way we put standard operating procedures and policy together and we will know which drug works better and which one that is not working better. We will be really moving our research process into a more robust, focused and directional platform here.”
“Nigerians desire a good health care system and that is what President Bola Tinubu has mandated us to do and we have to do this.”
“It’s an assignment, it’s a commitment and it’s an agreement that he made with the people of Nigeria. He has given us the task, we can’t afford to fail him and we can’t afford to fail Nigerians.”
Also, in his remarks, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, said that was time for renewal, to renew Nigeria’s health sector.
Pate noted that there was a lot of potential for improvement for Nigerian citizens to be healthier and there are major issues in the health sector added that in Lagos where a doctor lost her life is an example.
According to Pate, “We are blessed to have about 400,000 health workers who are working under difficult circumstances to deliver health to the people. We appreciate them, but there is a lot more that we can do in health.
“We will do this together, the federal government, MDAs, as well as the sub-national levels. State governments have a lot of responsibility to deliver health to the people, as well as the private sector.”
“We will improve the quality of governance. Leadership of hospitals. We will appraise the leadership of tertiary hospitals – teaching hospitals we will strengthen the regulatory capacity of our institutions like NAFDAC.”
“We will also help to improve this at the sub-national level, and health can be a basis for unifying the country as we can use health to improve cohesion”. He added.
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