Health information managers converge on Ibadan to appraise health care delivery

Worried by the challenges faced by its members in discharging their duties in hospitals across the nation, the Health
Information Managers Association of Nigeria (HIMAN) recently gathered in Ibadan where it made a statement on confronting the challenges headlong. TUNDE BUSARI reports

Till this morning, the executives and entire members of the Health Information Managers Association of Nigeria (HIMAN) are patting themselves on the back; rejoicing and awarding themselves excellent grades for the success of the 38th Annual scientific conference of Health Information Managers Association of Nigeria held in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

To them, especially the members of the local organizing committee, the sweat they individually and collectively shed towards staging a memorable show did not go in vain.

Between April 25 and 26 that the event held, the School of Nursing section of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan was a beehive of activities. The Omolola Alade Hall, which hosted the gathering wore a new look with exquisite decorations that depicted members of the association as people of class.

Although the second day event started far behind schedule, the opening ceremony lived up to the expectations of the members who had prepared to make a statement from the occasion, hence its theme: ‘Inspire to know’.

In preparation for the conference, the executives of the association had visited some radio stations in Ibadan including the Fresh FM where the proprietor, Mr Yinka Ayefele warmly received them with a promise to send a representative to the event.

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of UCH, Professor Temitope Alonge’s arrival at the opening ceremony literally electrified the hall as he was ushered in with the honour reserved for his status.

Professor Alonge who stood in for the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole and delivered the minister’s keynote address to the applause of the audience, said the annual conference was an opportunity to appraise the state of health care delivery in Nigeria.

According to him, it came at a time when the Federal Ministry of Health was developing policy framework to guide service delivery in the country as regards disease surveillance, reporting, medical coverage, and access to Health Information.

“As a Government, our policy as regards Health Information Management is that, it must be current and complete to be useful. It is our aim that both the private healthcare institutions and public healthcare sectors should have their records linked to facilitate referral and transfer of medical information,” he said.

The minister further stated that the focus of the Ministry of Health had been to eradicate all communicable and non- communicable diseases through strengthening primary, secondary, and tertiary health care services, pointing out that the government had made considerable efforts in the reduction of child mortality rate to 50deaths per 1000live births, improved maternal health, reduction in HIV and AIDS prevalence to 6.3 percent up from 26 percent, combating meningitis and cholera and reduction of malaria mortality in this country.

The federal government, he added, was aware of the per capital  health sector spending which stands at US$ 08 compared to US$34 recommended by the World Health Organization as opposed to the 15 percent agreed by Head of States and Government during the Abuja declaration.

He stated that the disparities revealed that 50 percent of Nigerians do not seek treatment while household expenditure through out of pocket expenditure account for over 40 percent of the total expenditure, adding that government is determined to address the disparities by providing quality health care to all Nigerians with particular emphasis to reducing inequalities to access and care.

“The plan of this administration is to make use of Health Insurance to cover more than 50 Millions of adult Nigerians and their dependents to bring affordable health care at the door step of Nigerians population.  Obviously, those in the formal sector have statutory national health insurance cover; millions of Nigerians in the informal sector have no Insurance cover, resulting to large proportion of our population without access to health care services. I do believe that the outcome of your conference will impact on the policy framework development,” he said.

In his welcome address, the President of the association, Mr. Wole Ajayi, described health Information as an instrument used to support policy and decision making and day to day actions in the field.

Parts of the objectives of the conference, he said, were to create awareness on Health Information System, highlight the importance of operational health information system and to examine the policy design of health information management.

According to him, the Nigeria Health Information Policy confirmed that health information system was one of the six building blocks of the health system, made up of data sources, data management, information products and use.

In the past, he recalled that the components of health information in Nigeria had not been organized in a way to provide reliable health information for effective and efficient planning, monitoring and evaluation of health programs in the country.

“It is only in communication and dialogue that we can advance. Let us bring back the old spirit of scientific congresses when our workshop was the confrontation of knowledge and the encounter of wisdom rather than a political meeting. It is a period where we have to develop crucial reforms in our practices, adjust and recalling our policies aiming at sort of “moving target,” Ajayi added.

The president expressed his appreciation to members for their steadfastness and solidarity in the trying moment of the association when litigation became inevitable as final arbiter.

He said the council had accepted the full responsibility and apologized for the break in the series of annual conventions. He reminded members that the struggle centered on supremacy of constitution and liberty to members for an assured future without any unwarranted molestation.

“You are the real stars of this scientific conference, and we, the organizers, are but the instruments to bring together the best minds in the field of health information.   Therefore, thank you so much distinguished members for being here despite the short notice.

“This conference is certainly a special occasion for our members who work for the development of Health Information Management Practice in the area of education, research and professional development. It is a forum for us to meet, listen, discuss, and share information and to plan for the future.

“Indeed, the congress is an opportunity to discuss key points of scientific and professional policies and strategies, helping us to define how we should encourage responsible conduct in our political decisions, and to promote Health Information Management practice,” he said.

The Guest Speaker, Professor S.O. Popoola of the department of Library, Archival and information studies, spoke on re-enforcing national health policy through integration of health information management in which he noted that the attention of the stakeholders in the health industry in advanced nations is gradually shifted away from health record management to health information management.

He also stressed that health information management practice for efficient and effective performance of national health system in Nigeria or elsewhere must be based on the basic components of information life-cycle development, that is, information definition, information creation, recording or acquisition, information analysis and transformation; information organization or storage; information preservation; information search and retrieval; information transfer and communication; information utilization and information disposal.

“There is a very weak capacity for health information system at sub-state level, eg local government area, facilities, untimely production/reporting of routine data, inadequate use of available data for planning and decision making, inadequate fund allocation by governments to health information systems and insufficient equipment for the management of health information,” he noted.

Further, new executive members of the association were elected before the programme was closed. Those elected include Micheal Mallo as the President, Majjoroh Eti as Vice-President, Ajolabi Abiodun as the Secretary, Christian Nwankwo as the Assistant Secretary, Kehinde Oluwasanmi as the Treasurer, Olusola Gbabee as Public Relations Officer, Ahmid Alao as Financial Secretary and Agharanya Chukwunonso as the Career Development Officer.