-Health minister says

WITH government looking to create a modern healthcare system for Guyana, the Ministry of Health is currently working on legislation for electronic medical records.

This is according to Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, who made this disclosure during his address at the opening of a nursing assistant training programme in Region Two.

He noted that the government is working to ensure the digital collection and storage of all medical records over the next three to four years. This would require nurses and other medical staff being trained so that they can understand how to operate the system.

Against this backdrop, Dr. Anthony said that the change in the system speaks to the privacy of patients and that privacy laws must be in place to ensure the information is secure.

“One of the things that we have already started working on is to make sure that, by sometime next year, we will be able to pass the relevant laws to allow for digital or electronic record systems,” the minister said.

He went on to add that the laws will create an environment which ensures that the records and people’s information are kept safe.

Dr. Anthony said that the government had started working on that and was hopeful that, by next year, it will be able to pilot the first steps of the electronic medical records system.
The health minister explained that, with the new system, patients at health centres and hospitals will have their names entered into the system which will show healthcare staff all of their medical records which will include laboratory results, allergies and other health-related information.

Just a few months ago, the health minister had said that the ministry was advancing its efforts to digitise its records with the installation of the electronic medical records system.

At that time, he mentioned that there were numerous advantages when using such a system. One such advantage would be the ability to store large amounts of data and retrieve it readily and have all the patient’s records in one place.