ICT assists African hospitals
- Published on 14 June 2012
-
An ICT system introduced this year at Kenya's Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital has helped improve collections in cost-sharing funds by Ksh.10 million per month, in a turnaround that has been credited with rescuing Kenya's second largest public hospital from financial collapse.
The hospital had been making losses and by the beginning of this year had built up debts of more than Ksh. 400 million.
But the ICT system, introduced in February as part of a wider restructuring of the hospital, has helped improve financial and administrative management.
The Kenyan newspaper, the Star, quoted the hospital's chief executive, Dr John Kibosia, as saying that the new programme will be officially launched later this month by medical services minister, Anyang Nyong'o.
"We want to extensively reduce the use of paper work in our system for greater efficiency and quick delivery of services," said Dr Kibosia
According to William San'g, a computer manager at the hospital, the new programme has brought efficiency in the way patients are handled and has helped maximize on its collections.
“Through the system we are able to tell the number of patients who have been registered at the hospital. We also know how many beds are occupied in each ward. By the end of the day, we can tell how much money has been collected,” said San'g.
He added that in the past, the hospital's records were manual.
“Very few of the hospitals operations were computerised,” said San'g.
“This led to a lot of challenges, especially in collections and management of patients.”
The hospital's monthly collections now total more than Ksh 60 million and are expected to improve further once the ICT programme is officially launched. The hospital received Ksh 300 million from the government to start the restructuring after it nearly collapsed due to mismanagement under a former administration.
