The Executive Assistant on E-health to the Executive governor of Delta state and chairman of the Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Isioma Okobah disclosed this shortly after a meeting with the Glo Nigeria and Software Business Solutions Consulting (SBSC).
According to Dr Okobah,
"through this E- health, we are going to access other doctors abroad and get improvement. And we are also going to solve transportation problem. For instance, a patient who cannot be managed in a particular health center and there is no means of transportation to a secondary health center, the patient dies. So we are going to reduce this mortality. Which is preventable. And apart from this, we have maternal and neonatal services, so we are going to make sure we focus on all of that including the immunization of our children from preventable diseases.
E health, the E stands for Electronic . You know right now, there is a lot of evolution in the medical field especially with the health information technology. The whole world has actually gotten electronic and the medical field has not been left out. So bringing E-health, which is all about electronic medical record and also telemedicine into the medical practice in Delta state, is going to help improve medical outcome in the state. So basically, E-health is going to be more of electronic medical record which is going to be for the primary health care centers. And this will help us keep all the patients medical records and also help with the practice of medicine. For Example, a nurse who after studying, finds it difficult to treat a particular patient, through telemedicine the nurse can get advice from a doctor in another center and that will reduce morbidity. So its elaborate.
On how it would benefit all Deltans, Dr Okobah added "Deltans are going to benefit from it in so many ways. First of all, their records are all going to be electronic. Secondly, its going to reduce morbidity and mortality. Like I said earlier, if a medical doctor can not have any more access on how to treat a patient, they can actually reach out to another medical doctor even internationally and get advice on how to treat the patient. That's what we call telemedicine. So with Telemedicine and E-health, we are going to actually help reduce morbidity. And we are also going to bring in his Excellency's health insurance scheme with the E-health programme which in turn will help improve the health insurance scheme and give us better health outcome".
Similar benefits She also highlighted include: faster access to medical services, better healthcare services and reduction in time spent in medical facilities from approximately four (4) hours to thirty (30) minutes.