హెల్త్ & మెడికల్ ఇన్ఫర్మేటిక్స్ జర్నల్

Background: Electronic medical record systems are increasingly incorporated into the healthcare systems of developing countries, including Ethiopia, to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the healthcare institutions.

Objective: The level of utilization and determinants of electronic medical record use among health professionals working in public health facilities in Harari Regional State, Eastern Ethiopia

Methods: A facility- based cross-sectional study was conducted on 498 randomly selected health professionals at public health facility of Harari Regional State, Eastern Ethiopia. Pre-tested, structured, and self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Data collection facilitators were participated in the data collection process. Data were entered into Epi Data Version3.1, and exported to STATA version 14.2 for data processing and analysis. Descriptive statistics were computed to describe the study variables. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify the predictors of the outcome variable. A p-value <0.05 at a 95% confidence level were considered as statistically significant.

Results: Of the total 551 approached health professionals, 498(90.3%) were returned the questionnaire. Out of this, 211(42.3%, 95% CI: 38, 46) were using the electronic medical recording system. Females (AOR=0.40, 95% CI: .251-.66), professionals with good attitude (AOR=1.71, 95% CI: 1.07, 2.72), professionals with good knowledge (AOR=2.48, 95% CI: 1.53- 4.00), and those having basic computer course (AOR= 4.45, 95% CI: 2.17 – 9.10) were significantly associated with the EMR system utilization.

Conclusion and Recommendations: In the present study the utilization of Electro medical record system was low. Health professional with basic computer courses, having good knowledge and a good attitude, were found to use an electronic medical record system. Therefore improving knowledge and awareness of health professionals is important for scaling up the electronic medical record system used in facilities.

In the last few years there has been increased utilization of smartphone technology by general public as well as healthcare professionals. One of the key features for increasing usage of smartphones is the ability to use applications, commonly termed as Apps. The present study aims to find out the available healthcare apps in three platforms (Android, Windows, iOS) and classify them. In addition, we examine the availability of app for drug and poison information centre to provide drug and poison information services. We performed a broad search for healthcare apps in three main platforms (Android, Windows, iOS), during 29/June/2016 to 31/December/2016 considering predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The available healthcare apps were categorized, based on their fundamental function into six categories; Drug information, Disease information and management, Drug interactions, Prescription manager, Multifunctional apps, and apps for Drug and poison information centre. Comprehensive review that includes description, logo, platform, download size, rating and cost of 277 included apps from a total of 9178 identified healthcare apps was prepared. Further this systematic and comprehensive review process in main three platforms shows there is no app for drug and poison information centre to provide drug and poison information service.

Department of Pharmacy Services is a part of the clinical support services available in LRH-MTI. Pharmacy informatics lab was established with an aim to develop an interdepartmental drug information system that will record individual patient's medications history, drug allergies, prescribed and dispensed medications and current as well as past drug treatments. The prime focus of the system is to perform automatic drug-interaction checks while adding to the patients' medication profiles. With the establishment of the first Pharmacy informatics lab of the region, the department of pharmacy services LRH-MTI has achieved two major objectives; implementation of electronic prescribing and administration systems and pharmacy information management system. Vigorous and ongoing trainings of all healthcare professionals including pharmacists, prescribers, nursing team, technicians and nursing care assistants by the faculty of Pharmacy informatics lab, collaboration of information technology professionals and the commitment of all other health care professionals towards digitalization helped achieved this goal.