Managing E-Patient Case Notes in Tertiary Hospitals: A Sub-Saharan African Experience

Abstract

Telemedicine, a proven solution to extend traditional healthcare services to the vulnerable in rural areas via the use of information and communication technologies, is seriously lagging in its deployment in the Sub-Sahara African region where access to well-resourced medical facilities is very limited. Also, e-patient case notes, a simpler form of telemedicine services, can help resolve the challenge of an acute shortage of medical servicing with care professionals for many rural dwellers. This paper proposes using e-patient case notes to replace manual methods in order to mitigate key barriers associated with traditional manual record keeping. As the basis for a theoretical framework, the tree theory is used to motivate the flow of information in the hospital system being reported. Briefly, the conceptual model and the algorithms to implement the model are presented with a few illustrative screenshots to showcase the effectiveness and impact of e-patient case notes. Additionally, the cyclic structure that depicts information flow from the patient admission up until the patient is either discharged or terminated in the system is highlighted. The communication system portrayed relies on private virtual networks to appropriately transmit the right information of each patient to the assigned caregivers.