Producer : ICT Agency of Sri Lanka & Office of the Regional Director of Health Services – Kegalle

Product URL :https://www.hhims.org

Producer’s Description

Hospital Health Information Management System ( HHIMS) is an open-source medical database software designed for use in Sri Lanka hospitals. It stores clinical details of patients treated and is designed for use by clinical staff - details are recorded on the system as they examine the patient   The system enables hospital staff to refer previous clinical records when the patient comes in for treatment, print visit slips or discharge letters for patients, print quarterly health statistics and prepare notifications of infectious diseases for the local Medical Officers of Health. The software will thus significantly reduce the need for maintaining paper based records and enable an improved and efficient service to the patient.

The HHIMS offers many advantages to higher level decision makers in the health care administration in Sri Lanka – it can help detect and control emerging and endemic health problems, monitor progress towards health goals, and promote equity in health care by empowering the citizen with timely and relevant health-related information, and drive improvements in quality of service. From the point of view of the policy maker it strengthens the evidence base for formulating effective health policies, permitting evaluation of scale-up efforts, and enabling innovation through research and improves efficient use of resources by way of effective stock controls. From a clinical perspective the HHIMS improves quality by giving timely access to important clinical information, mobilising new resources, and ensuring accountability in the way they are used.

Jurors' Evaluation

Hospital Health Information Management System (HHIMS) is a free and open source platform introduced to manage the integrated care pathway of Sri Lankan health care institutions. Currently it has been piloted in two hospitals in the Kegalle district. The goal of the project is to improve the quality of care provided in government hospitals throughout Sri Lanka. This will be achieved by improved documentation of medical records using a reliable, easy to use, computerized record system. The system has been developed entirely on open source technology that can be used freely without license costs and is therefore affordable.

Helping decision makers to detect and control emerging and endemic health problems, monitor progress towards health goals, promoting the equity of care are key consideration in developing the system. HHIMS also strengthens the evidence for effective health policies, permitting evaluation of scale-up efforts, and enabling innovation through research and helping improve governance, mobilizing new resources, and ensuring accountability.

HHIMS has several modules to support the functions of the registration desk, doctor's desk, pharmacy and notification. Patient registration has a comprehensive electronic medical record including disease, symptoms, drugs dispensed, injections and laboratory investigations. This medical record system is the key component of the HHIMS facilitating effective access to past treatment records. The diagnosis complies with internationally accepted ICD 10 and SNOMED nomenclature. When the drugs are dispensed the system automatically shows the balance stock. HHIMS also automatically generates notification when a notifiable disease is recorded by the doctors.  Apart from clinical details, the system provide various reports and statistics which can help hospital management and administration.