The Ministry of Health of Ethiopia launches a digital health database system, which enables to share health information of individuals among health institutions across the country.
The digital database solves the hassle of searching for hardcopy cards of patients in health institutions, according to Dr. Amir Ahmed Minister of health of Ethiopia. The new digital health database is expected to make patients information reliable and easily accessible.
The Ministry will take multiple tasks to fully apply the digital database in all health centers across the nation.
Currently 60% of the health institutions across the nation are using the new digital health database. To make the coverage nationwide digitalizing all medical records in health centers is currently underway parallel to bolstering the capacity of health workers with the new system.
Creating modern and accessible information for all cases is under consideration. The federal ministry of health along with Ethio Telecom are working together to interconnect health centers across the country through the Internet.
Taking over the old manual data input, the digital health database involves starting from issuance of patient card to medication all relevant information, according to Minister Amir, quoted by Addis TV.