EAFYA Health Management Information System Launched at Bwindi Community Hospital
The Ministry of Health, Uganda, together with the Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau (UPMB), successfully launched a new patient management system, EAFYA (E-electonic and AFYA, a kiswahli word for health), and an Electronic Medical Records system, EMR+, at Bwindi Community Hospital (BCH), a major leap towards modernizing healthcare delivery in our area.
It is important to note that of all private facilities in Uganda, BCH, a rural-based, private not-for-profit facility, was the first to be given this EAFYA system, thanks to UPMB, who made it possible.
According to the Ministry of Health (MOH) team, of all the facilities requiring a new system, BCH was the readiest in terms of digitalisation. BCH has been supported by a team from MOH and Makerere School of Public Health, Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Support (METS). We are grateful to the stakeholders that made this possible.
BCH Executive Director, Dr. Charlotte Aguti Ongom, appreciated the UPMB and MOH team and the METS team for having supported the program at BCH.
“I thank the BCH staff and the teams for working effortlessly. This will help in monitoring of health workers and stock management that has been one of the challenges. Our patient waiting time is going to reduce. We are blessed as a facility. Auditing will be much better. BCH is the first private not-for-profit facility under UPMB to be using the system,” she emphasised.
Samantha Orikiriza, from USAID Local Service Delivery for HIV and AIDS Activity (LSDA), Uganda South West, noted that they came to Bwindi for 3 weeks in response to the national health information and digital health strategic plan 20/21-24/25.
Two systems were introduced to the facility, that is, EAFYA for general hospital management, and Uganda EMR+ for TB/HIV patient management. EMR+ helps BCH to interact with patients from point to point. Health workers are able to enter real-time data with the client present. Both systems are able to support reporting.
We are aligning ourselves to the national strategy in terms of digitalisation. At the end of the day, the system is able to give an analysis, thus making quick interventions to influence decision making. This will help in improving health service delivery and management.
Dr. Phiona Musiime from MOH congratulated BCH upon the step taken to digitalise. She thanked the MOH team for providing the technical support.
“This is a right step in the right direction. We look forward to streamlining all the areas digitalisation is going to support. This will reduce paper work and enhance digitalisation. We have come to appreciate the work being done in Bwindi. We appreciate the management of BCH that has been so welcoming and facilitated our stay. We want to see an improvement in the patient outcomes,” she said.
The District Health Officer, Dr. Birungi Mutahunga, noted that the new system will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the hospital, as well as reduce prescription and medical errors.
Dr. Scott Kellermann, the Founder of BCH, reminded the teams of the importance of retaining patients’ medical records. He noted that in his time in Bwindi, patients retained medical records but couldn’t bring them back to the hospital on other visits.
“Every time you would see a patient, it would be like a first encounter. Patient care would be improved drastically. Data analysis and research will be highly improved with this. This will be helpful in communicating outbreaks,” he added.
The EAFYA system will improve the hospital’s operations in efficient record-keeping, enhanced patient management, data security, reporting and analytics, as well as integration with national health systems.
By Elizabeth Namara
