Iloilo village health stations go hi-tech

MANILA, Philippines -  Angelita Rosales, a midwife, was anxious to get back to the pile of paperwork in the health station in a small barangay in Iloilo province.

She’d been unable to update patient records or finish the daily reports because there just isn’t enough time. She divides her time among three barangays. She does not wait for patients to come to the health center. Part of her daily grind is to make house calls, mainly on foot. At times, she goes door-to-door, as when a nationwide health drive, say, on immunization, is being implemented.

In many rural areas the heart of the health care program is the barangay health station. Here a midwife, assisted by a group of health workers, attends to patients’ prenatal, postnatal, and infant care, as well as family planning and immunization needs. On top of that, the midwife has to accomplish reports. 

Basic operations such as maintaining patient information records and endorsement of patients to better-equipped rural health units and district hospitals require paperwork. Transmission of data progresses only at the speed at which paperwork changes hands from the barangay health station to the rural health unit or district hospital.

This will soon change with Project SHINE, or Secured Health Information Network and Exchange, an electronic medical records and inter-facility health referral system that seeks to change and accelerate the way patient information is recorded, maintained and exchanged, particularly in rural areas.

Smart Communications Inc. is implementing the project in partnership with the Department of Health (DOH), the provincial, city and municipal governments of Iloilo, and the large tertiary hospitals in the province, starting with the Western Visayas Medical Center and Western Visayas State University Medical Center.

It is the vision of the health department to promote information and communication technology for health. Smart, for its part, is carrying out the project under its “Kabalikat” corporate social responsibility program, designed to provide wireless solutions for the improvement of health care services. 

SHINE will speed up access to and transmittal of patient information, consequently giving midwives more time for patient care.

All patient data will be inputted into the system via a computer and/or a specialized menu on their mobile phones and can easily be retrieved and packaged into reports required by the DOH and its regional and provincial units.

The project will also automate patient referral while allowing midwives to keep track of patients’ cases through updates from the new health care provider in the system.

Patients will be spared of the tiresome process of filling out forms every time they are referred to another doctor or a health care provider. With accurate and updated records, they are given assurance of quality treatment.

The success of this trailblazing initiative is reliant on a thriving ecosystem characterized by effective partnership and interaction among Smart, local government units, and various medical, health, civic and academic organizations, as well as the technology-readiness of the environment in which the system will be put in place.

Iloilo is just the beginning. The system will eventually by brought throughout the country so that more Filipinos will benefit from the faster and cost-efficient delivery of health services at the grassroots level.