A FRAMEWORK FOR A CLOUD-BASED ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS SYSTEM FOR NIGERIA

  In most countries of the developed world, one of the integral components of Health Information System (HIS) is Electronic Health Records (EHR). With advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the rise in the adoption of cloud computing approaches in the health sector of these countries by a substantial number of health institutions, cloud servers are now remote repository of EHRs. However, in Nigeria and many other developing countries, health information of patients is still predominantly paper-based medical records. This manual method is not scalable in terms of storage, prone to error, insecure, susceptible to damage and degradation over time, highly unavailable, time consuming in accessing and with no visible audit trail and version history to mention but a few. In this paper, a framework for a cloud-based electronic health records system that is capable of storage, retrieval and updating of patients’ medical records for Nigeria is proposed. The framework provides for various medical stakeholders in a health institution and patients to access the EHR system via a web portal by using a variety of devices in the contextual scenario whereby the health institution is migrating from paper-based patient record documentation to an EHR system

Legislating for trauma and mass casualty in Nigeria

No Abstract.Archives of Ibadan Medicine Vol. 7 (2) 2006: pp. 111-11

National health bill: Implication on public health law and ethics in population

Objectives: The lack of clear provision for health in the 1999 constitution as amended in 2011 has implications on health system. In 2004, Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) in collaboration with the National Assembly of Nigeria proposed a National Health Bill (Public Health Law). The research was conducted to identify the constitutional gap on health systems and discussed the implication for the provision of tertiary health care systems in National Health Bill. Methods: Systematic and comprehensive assessment of the National health policy and constitution provision for health systems were reviewed. Key Informant Interview (Kll) was also carried out among the policy makers and desk review of documents and records. Results: The lack of clarity and specificity in the constitutional provision makes it possible for all tiers of government at all level to engage in all the three types of health care. The National Health Bill was developed as an instrument for correcting the gaps in the 1999 constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria as it relates to the health sector. Its provisions have effects on all three levels of care and subsystems (primary, secondary and tertiary). Many provisions have implications on the tertiary health system in either directly or indirectly. However the sections that have most profound effects on the tertiary health system operation are sections 8 and 9, which provide for the establishment of National Tertiary Hospital Commission. The commission would bring all the tertiary facilities owned by Federal Government its control. Conclusion: The coming into being of National Tertiary Hospital Commission will lead to improved funding, management, regulation and coordination of tertiary health system