One Patient, One Record

New Health Information System Coming

THE Owen King EU Hospital (OKEUH) will receive technical support in setting up its Health Management Information System (HMIS) from a UK based company called RIOMED.

A representative from the company, Mario Mohammed said RIOMED currently provides health care solutions to the NHS (National Health Service) in Ireland and parts of the Caribbean. He said: “We also have offices out of India and stations in the Middle East.”

The RIOMED Representatives met with officials from the Ministry of Health including the Permanent Secretary, Executive Directors of St. Jude and Victoria Hospital, Corporate Planning Unit, Commissioning Team for the Millennium Heights Medical Complex, among others and proposed to establish a software solution which provides “One Patient, One Record.”

Mohammed explained: “Wherever services are delivered for health, patients will be able to turn up at those services and the physicians or nurses will be able to access their patient records online. So we have continuity of health care delivery across all health centres, all hospitals around the island”.

A health management information system (HMIS) will improve service delivery, which eventually leads to better health outcomes for the patient.

The Owen King EU Hospital is billed to be one of the most state of the art health facilities in the Caribbean region and thus is scheduled to receive one of the most advanced, modern health management information system in the world.

Mohammed added: “In terms of creating better health care, it is absolutely crucial because we have continuity where one patient, one record is held so that the user being the clinician or the nurse or the doctor understands all the complexities of that particular patient, regardless where the patient turns up. The patient feels that they are being well looked after because the nurse or doctor whom they’re seeing, or the physiotherapist or the social worker understands the details of their record because all of the information is in front of them at that point.”

The RIOMED representative said HMIS will reduce a huge amount of duplication as well as improve the quality and safety of the services delivered at the various health institutions. Mohammed compared the security of client information on HMIS to that used in online banking.

Sheralin Monrose, Information Systems Manager for the National Health Management Information Systems Unit said the current HMIS used by the Ministry of Health spans across 30 of the 33 Wellness Centres on island including the Gros Islet and Dennery Polyclinic with a plan to fully integrate all Wellness Centres across the island.

“Part of what we are doing here today is to prepare the health information system at the hospitals across the Millennium Heights Medical Complex and the St. Jude Hospital. The overall objective here again is for the one patient, one record, for us to have that seemly movement of patient records across primary and secondary care.”

Monrose is confident that Saint Lucia will soon boast of having a fully integrated, efficient and effective Health Management Information Systems supporting the health care system while providing data central for policy planning, setting of targets and policy implementation.