E-Health program brings patient records online
Nearly 50% of the kingdom’s public, military health facilities now are connected to Hakeem program
Amman- The health records of over 3 million citizens are now accessible from any public or military health facilities connected to the e-health program “Hakeem”.
Electronic Health Solutions (EHS) the company which is implementing the program, said almost 50% of the kingdom’s public and military health facilities are currently connected to Hakeem.
EHS CEO Feras Kamal said 100 hospitals and primary and comprehensive healthcare clinics are currently connected to the system, and that two major hospitals – Al Bashir Hospital and King Hussein Medical Center will be automated in the middle of next year.
The vision behind the Hakeem Program, launched in October 2009, is to create a database of patients’ medical records across the Kingdom, including all the tests, procedures and surgeries of patients, their allergies, the medications they take and other health information.
The project, which was launched under the patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II Bin Al Hussein and first implemented at Prince Hamzah Hospital, is expected to be complete by the end of 2020.
“Our focus is on hospitals and comprehensive health clinics”, said Kamal, adding that 91 of the connected facilities are affiliated with the Ministry of Health and seven are military facilities, in addition to King Hussein Cancer Center and the National Woman's Health Care Center.
“What we are looking for is doing major clinical transformation in hospitals not only implementation of the program, but also to let people start thinking they have to adapt to the change,” Kamal said in a recent interview with The Jordan Times.
He explains that the availability of patients’ full medical records on the system increases their safety, as all information related to them can be accessed electronically at any time by service providers from any automated healthcare facility.
EHS has also developed a mobile application, where doctors in the facilities connected to the nationwide program can access patients' data anytime and from anywhere.
Today, “we have 300 doctors who have already downloaded the app”, Kamal said, noting that the app is secure.
EHS is also working on the Electronic Library of Medicine to improve the efficiency of Jordan’s healthcare system.
The library aims to provide healthcare workers and medical students in Jordan with electronic, up-to-date, evidence-based and free medical information, and to bridge the gap between patient care in urban and rural parts of Jordan.
Kamal said EHS had also signed memoranda of understanding with several Jordanian universities which “allow us to have Hakeem labs in these universities for students to practice on the program for future jobs”.
One of the challenges facing the program, seven years since its introduction in Jordan, is the availability of resources from beneficiaries and partners, he explained.
“They have an issue in the number of resources, the turnover is sometimes an issue for a program like that, as we train our staff and they leave after sometime, and it takes time to train others.”
To address this challenge, EHS is working to form “health information committees” at health facilities to train new staff.