The gathering, drawn from medical practitioners and Information Technology (IT) experts pointed out that much as electronic healthcare was a laudable venture, certain wishes which include the standard of practice, electricity supply and cost would need to be addressed before Nigeria can think of connecting.
But Dr. Segun Ebitanmi, Managing Director, Synapses who is proposing the idea of a medical network where a doctor can have access to a patient's file from any part of the world by merely clicking the mouse in what he calls Medinet, says these issues have already been resolved, adding that on the question of standard, there are about 400 electronic health standards in the world.
According to him, the key problems have always been the exact number to adopt or which one to adopt in implementing the medical networks all over the world.
But Synapses, in implementing the Medinet, he revealed, would be using the 10th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), adding that "our documents can accept documents from other standards." "We just convert to ICD-10 and then transmit it," he stated. The technology his company is using, he claimed, would support multiple standards.
"We are also working with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and other stakeholders", he said and noted that the Federal Government tried to do something similar to Medinet which it called E-NHIS.
The Federal Government's E-NHIS hit the rocks some years back when the government awarded a $24 million contract to implement it. But the scandal over money that was not disbursed derailed the government's E-health programme and cost the then secretary his job.
On if involvement with the NHIS will not have an adverse effect on Medinet, he pointed out that "the problem with the government's E-NHIS was political and not a technical one."
In view of the non-existence of electricity supply and the health network, he said, "we have partnered with some alternative power providers to make available inverters and batteries for hospitals so that the systems will be running at all time. We can bundle that with the software such that they can have a flexible payment."
In respect of the problem of cost, Ebitanmi highlighted thus: "We have got to a stage where we have concluded that with the payment of N35,000 monthly, a hospital can connect. Going by our research, there is no hospital in Nigeria that will not be able to afford that. We have got massive discount from MP and Microsoft.
"It is not a question of if it will work because it is already implemented in hospitals. It is in use at May Clinic, lIasa, Lagos", he revealed, adding that a Medinet hospital module includes administration, pharmacy, billing inventory and patient management.
The system will help hospitals to reduce cost from the use of stationeries, waste of time, and will also put fraud in check.
"Medinet allows hospitals to connect with their health management organisations, receiving enrollee list on time, sending authorization and on-line claims management.
"Most importantly, it allows the hospital to have access to global evidence based guidelines and improve the quality of encounters leading to better treatment."
Synapses has such a great promise, Ebitanmi stated, revealing that it has signed a service agreement with Intercontinental Bank and Flexmore Technologies, a subsidiary of the bank which Is into IT procurement. Under the agreement, the bank supplies the hospitals with computers while Synapses will provide the soft wear.
It already has an understanding with National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which will allow the government programme to use Medinet as a platform for the NHIS.
Dr. Ebitanmi is a 1998 graduate of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria. The idea of health based on information first came to him when he read that Nigeria loses children whose number totalled the whole population of Rwanda yearly because of dearth of information. Then research by Lancet saw what the single most cost effective health care was the access to reliable information. So he resolved that by 2015 he would have delivered a nationally integrated medical network that will ensure the availability of the highest quality health information at the point of care for all doctors, and this will ensure that a lot of children have access to quality care.
He finally decided to put his whole energy in the project when as a youth corps member serving at Iseyin, Oyo State, he noticed that children died in large numbers in the general hospital then than in the tertiary Ahmadu Bello University where he trained. So he compared the situation and found that information was readily available to the tertiary institution.
"Then, I knew that for one to make an impact on health delivery, that gap has to be bridged between the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of healthcare delivery.
"It got to a point where I did not know how to bridge that gap until I read Bill Gate's Business at the speed of thought and the chapter 'No Health Care is an Island' made a big impression. It was only a dream at that time but now it is reality".
What spurred him on was a dream, "a divine vision," where everything was shown in clear pictures."I dreamt that I was a doctor in the village, but that I was delivering the type of healthcare that was on equal standing with the best hospitals in the world".
Dr. Ebitanmi who is still single was born on December 19, 1972 to parents who are retired civil servants in Kano. He had his secondary school at Government Secondary School Omu-Aran, Kwara State.
Medinet is a divine vision which ensures that doctors in any part of the world can access a patient's medical record without the person carrying his consulting card around. It was set up to deliver national digital integrated medical network that would improve the quality of treatment, thus saving the lives of up to 500,000 children yearly.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ozo Mordi
Quelle/Source: The Guardian, 17.01.2009
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