Peter Okoye, PBA Journalism Mentee
The introduction of the application software in different sectors of the economy (including health) has gone a long way to ease efficiency of day-to-day business activities. This is simply a software that bundles together certain features in a way that is accessible to users in an efficient manner.
Join our WhatsApp Channele-Clinic System is a medical practice management software. It customizes medical practice management systems including patient care management, mobile Apps, scheduling online appointments, secure messaging, portals, e-billing, insurance, accounting, and HR/Payroll.
A patient may walk or be aided by someone else into the reception of a hospital and request to see the doctor. Then it takes the attending nurse a long time to search for his/her file before medical assistance is rendered.
The nurse goes to the inventory searching for files and 15 or more minutes are lost while the patient keeps waiting for the nurse to return with an old-looking file. Then the nurse instructs the patient to sit down and wait for the doctor in expectation to join the queue.
Meanwhile, as a result of the delayed services and bureaucratic processes that slow down healthcare delivery as commonly faced by hospitals across Nigeria. The innovators in the tech space have stepped up to tackle the inefficiency that has bedeviled the healthcare system in Nigeria for too long.
One such tech player is Africa’s leading integrated payments and digital commerce company, Interswitch, with its relaunch of the e-Clinic platform, a platform that comes with possibilities for healthcare givers.
The e-Clinic App makes it easier and possible to walk into the hospital and in a few minutes, you’re face-to-face with the doctor; receive your diagnosis and pick up your drugs off the counter – all seamlessly done. Waiting time is drastically reduced.
The e-Clinic platform was created with the sole purpose of tackling challenges that plague Nigeria’s medical sector. One such problem is that of medical inventory. The current system of keeping medical records of patients using the pen-and-paper method is neither reliable nor efficient.
With the eClinic platform, medical records can be easily accessed with just a few clicks on the computer. These records are sent to a central data collection centre that makes data sourcing easier for medical professionals, thereby driving efficiency.
In a statement from the organisation, Interswitch listed,” although not comprehensively, other features that make the e-Clinic platform a super app. These features include inventory and stock keeping, patient appointment and queue management, medical and insurance billing, assets management, integration to third-party systems via API, quick messaging and notification, medical coding, backup, and multi-location support, among others.”
The eClinic platform has been described as a patient-focused healthcare service, that brings new meaning to healthcare services in Nigeria. It is also worth noting that the services provided by the platform are designed to create trust between patients and their doctors; with patients knowing that their medical records are in safe hands.
This trust has been exemplified across some states in Nigeria where over 350 hospitals use the e-Clinic platform to aid healthcare professionals to deliver quality services while boosting productivity.
With the introduction of the eClinic App platform in Nigerian hospitals, efficient healthcare delivery has returned to the hospitals. This makes it possible for patients to be attended to in the shortest time, thereby has ensured that hospitals save as many lives as possible.
