Afrigather The Lagos State Ministry of Well being has partnered with Eclat, Interswitch’s healthcare subsidiary, to develop a digital medical information platform to boost healthcare supply effectivity throughout Lagos.
The Lagos State Well being Info Platform (Lagos SHIP) is designed to consolidate affected person scientific information from numerous healthcare ranges and supply accessible data to related stakeholders for knowledgeable care administration.
The objective is to facilitate versatile data change amongst clinicians, hospitals, diagnostics centres, pharmacies, insurance coverage corporations, and medical associations.
Akin Abayomi, Lagos Commissioner for Well being, introduced on Thursday at a stakeholders’ discussion board that the answer will likely be rolled out throughout public healthcare services in six months.
This may observe the institution of a sensible stage of interconnectivity between these services in numerous places.
Personal services will finally be capable of entry the platform after a two-year pilot part within the public system.
Abayomi defined that the answer offers the chance to drive healthcare with real-time information, enabling sufferers to entry improved high quality providers.
He additionally assured that the info could be protected below intense safety.
“By embracing the platform, we will streamline healthcare operations, scale back administrative burdens, and make extra knowledgeable choices. These enhancements translate into value financial savings and higher useful resource allocation, finally enhancing the standard of care and enhancing affected person outcomes,” Abayomi mentioned.
“We live in a time of fast transformation in healthcare, pushed by developments in know-how and a shift in direction of extra knowledgeable and concerned sufferers. The Lagos SHIP initiative, a joint effort by the Lagos State Authorities and Interswitch Group, is designed to revolutionise healthcare providers within the state by connecting sufferers to docs, streamlining affected person care via digital medical information, and fixing operational challenges.”
Earlier than this, healthcare data administration was fragmented resulting from a scarcity of seamless information sharing between services. Consequently, most sufferers’ information have been confined to their preliminary remedy location.
This causes inefficiency, deprives the federal government of the database it wants to know its residents’ health-seeking patterns, and finally results in discontinued care.
Wallace Ogufere, managing director of Eclat, asserts that know-how can rework healthcare effectivity and effectiveness, regardless of myriads of challenges together with entry to important care, scientific workforce exodus, rising prices, ravaging epidemics, and the burden of continual illness.
To handle these challenges, the agency has leveraged superior know-how resembling synthetic intelligence, machine studying, wearables, information analytics, and the Web of medical issues to refine healthcare supply and expertise.
“We are going to help the Lagos State authorities in unlocking the potential of digital medical information, securely leveraging information from private and non-private hospitals and allied places. This may facilitate improved expertise for stakeholders throughout the board from healthcare directors to medical professionals and sufferers. Furthermore, it can allow data-informed resolution making, driving higher healthcare planning coverage improvement and outcomes,” Wallace mentioned.
The managing director additional famous that digital well being will not be solely about know-how but additionally about folks. It empowers sufferers to take management of their well being, allows healthcare professionals to ship more practical care, and finally improves well being outcomes for all.
“The Lagos SHIP resolution will not be an finish in itself. We are going to maintain enhancing the platform to go well with our native nuances as they current themselves,” Wallace mentioned.
Talking on the transformative potential of the answer, Kemi Ogunyemi, particular adviser to the Governor on Well being, mentioned the objective is to ascertain a unified well being ecosystem the place numerous stakeholders together with healthcare suppliers and authorities companies can seamlessly collaborate, share data and work in direction of well being targets.
With real-time information and superior analytics offered by the platform to help knowledgeable choices, optimize useful resource allocation and operational effectivity, she envisions diminished errors and sufferers’ security.
“It’s not only a technological development. It’s a testomony to our unwavering dedication to innovation and excellence in healthcare. It goals to boost information administration. The platform will allow us to handle well being information, extra effectively, making certain accuracy, accessibility, and safety of affected person’s data,” she mentioned.
Olufemi Olapegba, managing director, Digital Well being Platform, Interswitch, offered key insights into the technological spine of the SHIP initiative. He defined that SHIP is basically a well being data change platform that seamlessly connects the demand and provide sides of healthcare.
“SHIP will adjust to numerous laws and requirements, significantly adopting the FHIR (Quick Healthcare Interoperability Assets) commonplace, which is the globally acknowledged finest follow for exchanging well being data,” Olapegba acknowledged.
He added that SHIP will expose a wide range of Software Programming Interfaces (APIs) to allow the safe and environment friendly sharing of well being information throughout completely different touchpoints throughout the healthcare ecosystem.
It would supply key providers, together with the Affected person Demography Service, which can uniquely establish each affected person presenting at well being services.
“This service permits for seamless monitoring of sufferers as they transfer throughout completely different healthcare suppliers, making certain continuity of care,” he defined. The platform may even empower sufferers to personal and handle their private well being data.
One other important characteristic of SHIP is the Abstract Care Information API, which facilitates the change of scientific information, making certain that very important particulars required for steady care are simply accessible to healthcare suppliers.
Moreover, the platform will supply an e-prescription service, enabling sufferers to obtain prescription providers past the confines of the well being services they go to. “For instance, a affected person might go to a hospital in Ikoyi and choose up their treatment in Epe if it’s not out there on the unique location,” Olapegba famous.
