Sh4bn project linking 98 hospitals yet to start

By VINCENT ACHUKA
More by this Author

By VERAH OKEYO
More by this Author

An ambitious programme that could have seen all Level Four hospitals and above interlinked with ICT systems is yet to take off, two years after a company was awarded the Sh4.7 billion tender for the project.

At Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), where the piloting of the Healthcare Information Technology (HCIT) centre was supposed to be done and a central data centre put up, the only indication of the intention to start the project is fading paint in a room and minimal cabling.

DATA CENTRE

The project was supposed to be completed within 90 days, since it was to use existing fibre-optic cables, which are spread across the country.

Seven Seas Technologies, the IT firm awarded the tender in September 2017, is reported to have asked the Ministry of Health to provide it with a “letter of comfort” to present to financial institutions to enable it to get funding, but the government reportedly refused.

On Wednesday, Seven Seas CEO Mike Macharia insisted the project is underway, but added that it had several components, making its execution difficult.

Related Stories

• 

  Sh4.7 billion health data technology in limbo

“The project also involves the integration of the system to multiple back end systems, such as linking to Kemsa (Kenya Medical Supplies Authority), NHIF (National Hospital Insurance Fund), and other systems that are critical to health and necessary towards the realisation of the Universal Health Care goal,” he said.

The HCIT project was supposed to enable real-time exchange of data between all the 98 hospitals under the government’s flagship Medical Equipment Services (MES) scheme.

But according to the project’s planners, its main purpose was to enable medical-care personnel to have a better understanding of the medical history of patients by mining their information from the central data centre at KNH.

This means the personnel would be able to retrieve the medical history of their patients and any treatment administered without having to ask, as long as they had been treated at any of the 98 hospitals under the MES.

COMMUNICATION

This is the global practice, and linking the HCIT project with the Sh38 billion medical equipment leasing scheme launched in 2015 seemed to be a better way of perfecting the effectiveness of the MES project, according to policymakers at the time.

Simultaneous roll-out

The MES and HICT projects were supposed to be rolled out simultaneously, so that the medical equipment being leased to the counties would be interconnected.

The data centre at KNH would be linked to 97 other county and sub-county referral health facilities, NHIF and Kemsa.

According to a senior surgeon at KNH, who spoke to the Nation on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media, the national referral facility requires “foundational equipment to allow the communication to happen with county facilities”.

“We needed a server to allow external communication with other facilities, but that was never given,” he said. “The one we have allows for internal communication between the wards and managing patients in Kenyatta.”

NOT PRACTICAL

Three other medics at the facility told the Nation that it would not have been functional and practical for radiology because Kenyatta’s MRI machine has not functioned for the past six years, and the hospital collaborates with private labs to take care of it patients.

Ministry of Health Director-General John Wekesa, who took over the office only recently, said he was not aware of the project and directed the Nation to the director of administration”.

Health Principal Secretary Susan Mochache did not return our calls or respond to our text messages on why the project stalled.

However, during an official tour at Lamu County’s far-flung Faza Hospital in 2016, then Health Permanent Secretary Nicholas Muraguri said the ICT equipment at the hospital was to allow counties that did not have specialised staff, such as Lamu, to work with hospitals like Kenyatta to serve patients.

The specialisation included radiology, and KNH was to be the pilot area.

But to date Seven Seas Technologies has failed to deliver the project.