The parliamentary committee on health was delighted to learn that there’s an effort by Ugandan information Techs to design, engineer and implement solution based softwares to improve public service delivery. The Integrated Hospital Management Information System (iHMIS) which is being implemented at government hospitals was applauded as a revolutionary innovation that efficiently addresses salient issues in the health sector. The issues were said to be sometimes propagated by staff such as absenteeism, drug theft, over stocking or over ordering of medicines as well sporadic loss of medical records.
The legislators noted that the health sector management suffers from artificial tendencies occasioned to self-benefit workers at the expense of patients and tax payers. While citing some examples Hon. Ruth Lematia a directly elected woman Member of Parliament, Maracha County articulated that, some medical workers connive to work for a few days in a week while covering up for each other once pressed for answers. “Seeing that this system; records and monitors real time staff attendance and duty task at the health facility, it’s a great innovation that must be supported at all costs”, she said.
Hon Engineer Irene Muloni a former Minister of energy and Mineral development freely expressed her thoughts about government expenditure to be saved from the system usage once deployed in all health facilities in the country including health centers II parish level. “This system is really excellent; it’s going to help improve efficiency, cut costs and minimize losses” and she further added that she’s “really excited about the system because she has no doubt about the use of computer based systems in solving problems.
Dr. Silver Kiyimba, the Principal Investigator-Integrated Intelligent Computer System (IICS Technologies) the implementing agency of iHMIS presented a live impression and functionalities of the system at random hospitals chosen by the committee. Astounded by the real time viewing of how patients were being attended to and the duration each medical worker spent on a patient, as well as some of the most requested for medicines at specific hospitals, the committee recommended an expeditious implementation of the system country wide.
The committee was humbled by Dr. Silver Kiyimba’s humility to honor the president’s call to leave the UK to come and create IT based solutions that enhance public service delivery in Uganda. He was flanked by Hajj. Abdul Nsubuga, PMP. the Project Manager, Mr Solomon Ssendigya, the Head Business Development & Strategy as well as other officers from IICS Technologies.
