Now that that National Health Insurance (NHI) is a law of the land, it’s time to focus on what will make it a reality. Many have focused on the financial side, however, there’s also a need to focus on the technology side. An overhaul of the national health system will be impossible without technology and digital health records.
The National Digital Health Strategy for South Africa (2019 to 2024) demands such a transition. It may be difficult to understand why this is important when there’s so much negative noise about the NHI.
To understand part of the need for a digital foundation you have to think about the health reality in South Africa and reflect on its future prospects.
If you visited most hospitals, you would find piles and piles of health paper records. It’s well known that the paper format can easily disappear. They also create difficulty in connecting the dots to make informed decisions based on historical health data.
I’m aware that keeping paper records is a legal requirement and they have a role to play in maintaining health records. At the same time, I'm a strong believer that digital records will make a difference in addressing some of the health-care industry challenges. A digital system would enable doctors to have better access to patient information. In turn this would improve the quality of health care.
Another current scenario is that we are almost treated the same for our individual health challenges. In future, digital health records will enable personalised health care. A prescription assigned by a doctor will be customised for each person.
Although personalised health care is something that will happen in the future, through artificial intelligences tools, its foundation is health data, which requires digitisation of health records. The NHI is a legal instrument that will take us to such a future at a national level.
The good news is that there’s some work being done to take us there. In the Western Cape, there’s a company, Health System Technologies, that has been pioneering the process of digitising health records. What the company has done needs to be rolled out nationally. The NHI will need such companies to enable citizens to have better access to health care.
It is also good to know that the Health Patient Registration System project has been started as an initial requirement before developing a template for what a patient Electronic Health Record would include.
These are just a few things worth mentioning about the value of technology in the process of enabling NHI. There’s more.
One day, you will walk into a general practitioner’s room and they will know everything they need to know about your health situation before you even speak. In this regard, there’s a need to be careful. This is one part of tech that should not be handed over to BigTech companies.
Local health tech companies should be supported to build local solutions. The last thing you need is to pay a BigTech company from elsewhere to access your personal health record. The NHI may be what is required to safeguard the future of access to health care, it just needs the health-tech plumbing.
Wesley Diphoko has been working at the intersection of media and technology as the Editor of FastCompany (SA). He is passionate about technology solutions for society. You can follow him on X: via @WesleyDiphoko
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