As Government continues to automate services, the PS-MoICT Dr. Aminah Zawedde has said that the IHMIS, a Government of Uganda initiative health monitoring system is part of the E-Government program whose implementation will improve services in the health sector.
The PS made the remarks while meeting the project implementer of the ICT based system-Dr. Silver Kiyimba in Kampala. iHMIS, is a collection of software components representing different business processes carried out in a health facility. Now under the Ministry of ICT and NG and working directly with the ministry of health, iHMIS was designed by a team of Ugandan Scientists as part of the wider Integrated Intelligent Computer System (IICS).
It supports management functions both at the local, district and national level and has so far been deployed in over 10 Regional Referral hospitals with over 60 general hospitals and health centre IVs scheduled to have the same by end of this financial year.
The automated system helps to curb drug theft in health centres, monitors health worker attendance, manages medical records and, tracks expiry of drugs among others. In one pilot study done at Mulago National Referral Hospital, a number of achievements were realized, among which were reduction of expired of medicines from worth about UGX 110 million to UGX 200,000. The pilot study also led to increase in accountability of medicines and medical supplies from around 38% to 80%, reduction in unnecessary over-ordering of certain drug volumes like the case of sodium Chloride which was reduced from around 2,000 cartons a month to slightly below 800 cartons a month.
Ends.
For more information, contact the Principal Investigator-IICS on email
Tel: +256 414 501330, +256 414 501 331.
