OSHI Centre for Health and Social Policy has reportedly returned to the drawing board after meeting with the Public Health Ministry on the establishment of a National Electronic Patient-Care Record (EMR).
Guyana Chronicle understands that the U.S-based organisation, which is made up of Guyanese, conducted a presentation earlier this week in the presence of the Public Health Minister Dr. George Norton and his technical staff.

According to an Information Technology (ICT) specialist from the Public Health Ministry, subsequent to the presentation, it was realised that the application being proposed by the U.S. team was partially in existence within the health sector.

“We have several applications that are fulfilling many of the objectives of that one application. What we are seeking to have is an application that would complement or improve our electronic system,” he explained.

The IT specialist added that it would be unwise for the Public Health Ministry to invest in a recurrent project when similar projects already exist.

According to him, it was the hope of the ICT Department that Oshi Centre for Health and Social Policy would have produced an “inpatient kind of application.”

Using the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) as the pilot hospital, he said an inpatient application would allow the administration to determine the cost and resources being utilised per bed or per patient. “Although the services at GPHC are free, it would be nice to know the cost per bed.”

He added that such a programme would also allow for effective management so they have returned to the drawing board.

It is the hope of the Ministry that transparency and accountability in Guyana’s healthcare sector will be improved with the use of Information Communication Technologies.
The A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition, in its 2015 manifesto, had pledged to improve the country’s health systems and services by strengthening the health surveillance units, data collections and laboratories services.
Currently, the Government is working to incorporate the operations of the National Data Management Authority (NDMA) into the E-Governance operations.

NDMA has not had a board appointed in over two decades, an issue which is said to have severely hampered the work of the authority.
The NDMA Act of 1983 provides the appropriate framework through which government can address the ICT needs of the public sector. In this regard, the government will place the NDMA and E-Government Project under a single administrative system.

By Svetlana Marshall