Electronic medical records to vastly improve patient management at GPHC 

Paving the way for increased digital healthcare countrywide, the Georgetown Public Health Corporation (GPHC) on Friday launched an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, with its Internal Medicine department already making use of digitised patient records.
Through a collaboration with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), this EMR system aims to increase efficiency, reduce errors and ease the accessibility of health records of patients across the hospital.
Head of GPHC’s Medical Clinic, Dr Grace White explained that the system is configured into modules including clinical, administrative, admissions and registration components.

“When a patient comes to the clinic, rather than having to present a paper card, they’re going to have all their registration information collected and entered digitally. And so, when they return to the clinic, all that has to be done is have their code be put in [and] that would bring up their information,” Dr White explained.
Patients are assigned a unique identifier, by means of a code as Dr White mentioned or by presenting their name. This identifier helps them to move along the process of seeing a doctor more effectively.
“All the information is forwarded into the computer so the nurse who’s looking after [the patient] just has to open up and to enter their details and vital signs. By the time she’s done, it reaches the doctor’s office and the patient will actually go in to be seen,” Dr White said.
The system uses a modified version of an Indian open-source EMR software called Bahmni and while PAHO continues to offer immense technical assistance, local company Techlify has also been performing back-end support to ensure its smooth operation.
Currently, this EMR system is being piloted in the Internal Medicine Medical Clinic, whereby information on new consults, or patients entering the clinic for the first time, are being inputted into the system to allow medical professionals to help them at a faster pace.
“Since we started [implementing the system] on July 6, all the new consults are being entered into the system, and this is from not only the general Internal Medicine Clinic, but all the subspecialties, and a percentage of the follow-up patients,” Dr White said.
While plans are already underway to introduce this system into the Accident and Emergency department next, it is unclear when exactly all units of the hospitals will be fully utilising digitised patient records.
“We do have contracts that cater for a period of time – there’s a commitment for part of what has to be done to be finished by December. But whatever extensions are needed to perfect the system as we roll out in the various departments has been assured,” Dr White said.

Lead healthcare delivery
Meanwhile, GPHC Chairman and Advisor to the Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy shared the public hospital’s plans to lead healthcare delivery in the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
“[Our] young doctors, nurses and medical technologists have demonstrated [the ability] to lead health development in Guyana and the Region. If we are going to take that place as leaders of health in the Region then we must have an EMR system in place,” Dr Ramsammy said.
He noted that already, GPHC has a functioning laboratory information system that is interlinked with all of its clinics, thereby allowing doctors to read lab results in real-time through an electronic portal.
Dr Ramsammy added that work is underway with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to further the rollout of a high-quality EMR system, with the one being launched at GPHC just the beginning of that effort.
Meanwhile, on the national scale, an EMR has been in the talks for some time now, with a Data Protection Bill set to be presented in the National Assembly soon, laying the foundation for the countrywide digital health system.
Also present at the EMR system launch on Friday were GPHC Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Robbie Rambarran and PAHO/World Health Organisation (WHO) Health Systems and Services Advisor, Daniel Albrecht.