Special Report: Of UMTH, Health In A Box Project

Special Report: Of UMTH, Health In A Box Project

By: Balami Lazarus

Hospital administration, financial, and clinical demands are primarily the focus of the hospital information system (HIS), a subset of health informatics. By providing a patient’s health information and visit history when needed, these technologies help healthcare workers better organize patient care. In essence, HIS is made to anticipate patient health status inside the hospital setting and manage patients and their relevant information in a consolidated manner using electronic data processing.

Its goal is unquestionably to deliver better healthcare services with accuracy. On this note, Professor Ahmed Ahidjo, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, decided to pioneer a new project he named “Health-in-a-box,” focusing on the hospital store to provide better service to the hospital’s departments and units.

This project, whose chairman is Professor BM Kagu, aims to be able to account for any item that enters the store electronically by maintaining a database of the things there. Knowing what enters the store and what leaves it is helpful to the hospital. This procedure can assist in tracking for administrative purposes and will help to account for the distribution to the user department and unit.

In response to a recent NEWSng report titled “Department of Stores and Supplies: Of Professor Ahidjo’s Foresight and Focus Management in UMTH” on the central store. Due to high-tech advancements, the stores have once again come under scrutiny in order to ensure smooth distribution of pharmaceuticals and other hospital supplies to the various departments and units as well as to have or ensure checks and balances. This is done by computerizing the store.

Every sector and department of organizations and institutions is heavily computerized; their units are not excluded from the e-system of transactions of goods and services like that of UMTH. This initiative by the hospital administration, led by Professor Ahmed Ahidjo, the CMD, is producing fruitful outcomes in the administration of a system like the UMTH.

Among the advantages of this system’s NEWSng lessons are the provision of high-quality patient care, especially ambulatory and outpatient treatment increased information integrity, reduced transcribing mistakes, such as when doctors’ prescriptions contained errors due to their unreadable handwriting, reduction in repeat testing since general knowledge confirms the existing diagnosis, dependable information storage and quick retrieval, greater speed of report and result turnaround limiting authorized personnel’s access to patient health data When dealing with concerns of consumable and non-consumable items entering and leaving the stores, the interface should be user-friendly.

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While explaining about the system, The CMD, Professor Ahmad said that the computerization of the hospital central store is in line with the Hospital Information System under the Health – in – Box project. ” We recently computerized the whole of the store with a hospital information system under the Health – In – A-Box project in the hospital. Any item that comes into the store must be entered into the electronic data base and similarly the distribution to user departments and units “.

NEWSng learnt that the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital is the first teaching hospital to undertake the computerization of its large store of seventeen specialized units called the central store.

In a phone chart with Mallam Jibrilla Dawa, the acting HOD of the store said that the Health – In -A- Box initiative has eased physical man movements and that of drugs/items. According to him, officers of the various units of the store can easily account for the movement of any item that leaves their units.

“With this system in place, it is now easy to trace items and know their location. Indeed, we are challenged with inadequate power supply and computer systems. But with initiatives such as this coming, we are going to have a better system that works soon. This project will very soon take over the whole hospital which in the long run will make UMTH an e – hospital.” Dawa said.

According to NEWSng, hospital information systems need to be adaptable to keep up with the advancement of technology. The hospital information system also requires that data be accurately and securely maintained, gives assurance in its use, and allows rapid and easy access to data while prohibiting unauthorized access under certain conditions. The project at hand doesn’t give the CMD, Professor Ahmed Ahidjo, any sleepless nights because it’s already adding to his list of accomplishments in hospital management and administration.

Special Report: Of UMTH, Health In A Box Project