Digital enterprise management systems can help to address some of the problems in public healthcare facilities in South Africa, and a good starting point would be the clinics that feed into the broader hospital network, says information technology services company T-Systems South Africa healthcare and logistics lead Leigh Venter.

However, the scale and scope of the public healthcare services make it difficult to enforce the existing regulations and legislation to ensure high-quality healthcare and administrative functions. Many processes are still manual, which can lead to problems regarding patient registration and locating files already opened, she adds.

Digital healthcare systems alleviate many administrative challenges to allow for a greater focus on providing high-quality healthcare.

T-Systems has deployed healthcare systems, which are based on the enterprise resource software multinational SAP Industry-Specific for Healthcare module, at 26 private hospitals in South Africa.

The value of these systems to support better patient treatment and outcomes while managing costs, maintenance and reporting has been proven, she emphasises.

“Systems that can integrate and harmonise the scheduling and management of palliative and operational employees, while empowering administrators and managers with information, timely reminders and warnings, help to improve the quality of care provided for patients.”

The volume of patients that most of South Africa’s public hospitals have to deal with is massive and often overwhelming, she states.

More effectively managing the resources of hospitals using information systems that monitor and manage employee, patient, equipment and facility processes will enable hospitals to manage the allocation of employees and resources.

Having the required resources and staff when necessary will have a direct impact on the quality of healthcare provided and deal with the problem of patient volumes because their appointments and healthcare information, as well as the resources required to serve them, will be managed by the system.

The hospital information system provides a patient-specific lifetime healthcare number, called a patient master index number, which is used to manage the patient’s files, appointments, operations, short-message reminders and references, and share information among healthcare facilities and provincial and national departments.

“This number links to the hospital information system and also to dispensaries to enable practitioners to see when and where medicine is collected, as well as medical history, diagnoses and treatments.”

Despite the benefits a healthcare information system can provide, the roll-out of such a system is hampered by the scale of managing change in the organisations and training people.

“There are more than 30 000 public-sector healthcare practitioners in Gauteng alone. It would take four years to train them all on the new system. It is not viable to roll out this system all at once nationally,” says T-Systems South Africa Build SAP line manager Henri la Grange.

Therefore, a more effective roll-out may involve introducing the information system at clinics, which feed into the regional hospital networks, as well as at the back end of the hospitals.

This will help to harmonise referrals, appointments and the allocation of resources, including work schedules, to ensure the required number of staff is on hand through the effective sharing of information and more effective management and maintenance of large hospitals.