M’AYARESA: An Improved Health Information Management System for Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital

Abstract

In 2017, Ghana’s Ministry of Health adopted the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS), an outsourced project aimed at streamlining workflows in government hospitals. Despite the portability of patient data, LHIMS poses significant challenges as it does not address the specific needs of medical staff in Ghanaian government hospitals, particularly at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH). Additionally, the system fails to consider context-related issues such as power outages, poor network connectivity, and the No Bed Syndrome prevalent in the Ghanaian healthcare space. This project addresses the shortcomings of LHIMS by proposing a new software, M’ayaresa, which is research-driven and tailored to meet the needs of medical staff at KBTH. The end product is a progressive web application that streamlines the hospital’s unique operational demands, incorporating biometric patient facial identification, real-time data integration, and comprehensive analytics and reporting. This project contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 3 – Good Health and Well-being by addressing the bed shortage at Korle-Bu, serving as a model for contextualized hospital management systems, and contributing to sustainable healthcare solutions.