The patient care experience at the May Pen Hospital in Clarendon is set to be revolutionised with the roll out of the Electronic Health Records (EHR) System on Thursday, January 11.

The May Pen Hospital is the first of 13 health centres and hospitals across the island to get the EHR system.

Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton, who was speaking at Thursday’s roll-out of the digital records system, said its implementation represents a major transformation in patient care.

“What we are doing is ushering in the Electronic Health Records System which for us represents a major transformation in how we treat our patients, our customers in our public health system. Because effectively it impacts transaction time, the length of time it takes to get a patient through the system, processing them, looking at their historical record, making an early diagnosis, doing diagnostic tests, transmitting that information electronically, and of course, giving them the reassurance that we know what’s wrong with them and we can prescribe an approach solution, therapy to solve the problem they have,”

MINISTER OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS DR CHRISTOPHER TUFTON

The EHR system allows medical doctors to access patient’s medical history, including demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, past medical history, among others.

“It’s an important milestone because it delivers equitable comprehensive and quality healthcare for the people of Jamaica and makes reliable and modern infrastructure available to our health system. Anticipation has been growing as various stakeholders have waited to see this since the signing of the contract back in February 2023 in the health system strengthening programme and, therefore, we are very happy to announce the eCare programme, that’s the name you are to get used to unveiled shortly,” Tufton said.

The health minister shared that the programmes reflect features such as a patient registration system for appointment setting and assignment of patients in the triage process, a seamless interface of critical diagnostic imaging, enabling doctors to see X-rays and CT scans on computers and tablets as well as uploading and sharing healthcare dockets within the system.

“All of this will lead to higher standards of care, better delivery of care and a more efficient and timely delivery of care,” Tufton stressed.

The Government signed a US$5 million contract in February of last year with the United Kingdom-based software company, The Phoenix Partnership, to implement the programme in the selected hospitals and health centres.

The first phase of the implementation includes the St Ann’s Bay Hospital, May Pen West Health Centre, Chapelton Community Hospital, May Pen East Health Centre and Mocho Health Centre, Greater Portmore Health Centre, St. Jago Park Health Centre, Old Harbour Health Centre, St Ann’s Bay Health Centre, Ocho Rios and Brown’s Town Health Centre.