DHIN Launches ‘CONECTATHON’ To Integrate Digital Health Records

Digital Health Interoperability Network (DHIN) has launched “2023 CONECTATHON: Connect4ID” in a bid to integrate medical records of patients for physicians and practitioners across different hospitals in the country to access and manage patients.

At a 2-day event with the theme, “Unique Identifiers For Management Of Duplicate Health Records” which held in Abuja drew stakeholders from the government institutions, WHO, health and technology experts.

Speaking with journalists, Digital/Public Health Expert and Co-convener of DHIN, Juliet Odogwu said DHIN is hosting its first CONECTHATON to provide a platform for different stakeholders, public health, digital health, policymakers, software engineers, developers, technical folks to come together and hash out critical issues that affect integration and interoperability of digital health systems.

She said CONNECT4ID is about using unique digital health identifiers across institutions and platforms to be able to share information seamlessly.

“We realise that that is a huge issue because patients records are not easily shared across different electronic medical records systems and different digital health solutions which leads to a lot of adverse effects for the patient and a lot of incomplete data for the patient, and its very inefficient for practitioners and physicians across different hospitals to be able to see and manage patients.

“So we are shedding a light on it from a technical standpoint and also from policy and collaboration standpoint so that we can come together and create some solutions around that.”

Speaking on the part of the government, she advised that the right policies, standards and regulations around some technology solutions should be put in place to protect the data of patients.

“Technology vendors should not just wake up and deploy a system without actually making sure that they are following guidelines and regulations that the government has set for digital health systems, for identity management, for patient management. So the government really needs to ensure those standards are updated, in line with global best practices, and ensure enforcement for vendors to have the right framework to develop their solutions and make sure those solutions are talking to other solutions within the ecosystem.”

Also speaking, representative from the Federal Ministry of Health said the gathering holds significant promise for advancing MRI implementation across all level in the health system. “This will go along way to improve the quality of healthcare delivery and also position Nigeria as key player in digital health provision. Lets us use this opportunity to harness the power of technology to improve the healthcare system in Nigeria.”

On his part, ICT Manager, National Health Insurance Agency, Titus Njoku in a goodwill message commended DHIN for organizing the event. He said; “We are here to support and partner with DHIN to show that there is need for technology to be introduced to health ecosystem in driving systems.”