SIMON DZOKOTO P.O. BOX HP 96 HO. 21 APRIL 2006.

The Editor, Graphic Communications Group Ltd Graphic Road P.O. Box GP742, Accra.

I would be very grateful if you could publish this letter in your authoritative News paper as a way of adding my voice to the need for quality health care delivery in Ghana. Health Information Management is regarded as the major catalyst to the system of health care delivery in America, United Kingdom and other well endowed nations in the World. The activities of the Health Information Management Associations in these countries have actually created the awareness of the importance of Health Information and also assisted in the policy guidance, decision making, monitoring and Evaluation in these countries. In Ghana, the Health information Unit which hitherto was known as the medical Records Department or the Biostatistics Department is one of the frustrated departments in the countrys health facilities. Staff of this department are seen as school dropouts and nonentities in the health care delivery. They are never regarded in anywhere and their efforts are never recognized in the health care delivery in the country. Most of the attention is always given to those involved in the Disease Control activities whose work may even be made easier by the staff of the Medical Records Department/Health information Unit. When the Health Information Unit could be properly resourced to be able to provide on daily or weekly basis, analysed data on morbidity conditions visiting our health facilities, the work of the Disease Control officers and the Public Health Units will be better seen. Presently, the Medical Records Department which is now called the Health Information Units of the health care facilities are placed in obscure corners or are made to share a room with other Units. Some of these buildings have poor ventilation and may not be good for human habitation. Because the Medical Records Departments are being shared with other Units, records of patients may no longer be confidential. The rights of the patients are being violated by these acts in the health care facilities. Most managers think that the Medical Records Departments are unimportant units hence do not pay serious attention to staff of these Departments. The Department is also one of the neglected areas in terms of qualified staff. Most of the people employed for the Medical Records Department are not given the requisite In-service training or orientation on the modern methods of Medical Records or

Health Information Management activities to be able to perform to improve upon the management of the Records. In most of the facilities, there is only one Technical Officer who needs to design, plan and execute the programmes for Data Collection, processing, analysis and dissemination of Information. In facilities where there are 3 or more clinicians/prescribers, the only Technical Officer is expected to do the Data Entry of the activities of these three prescribers, screen and analyse for dissemination and for decision making activities of Managements. In some facilities there are no technical officers to do these; hence data collection and management activities are in shamble. Decision making is always done on assumptions by the Managers because both data processing and analysis is not trusted by the managers or information is not available to support the decision making process. The auxiliary staff to the Technical officers are not very knowledgeable in the techniques and need to be trained in these techniques to assist the Technical Officers. The problems of the health care delivery can partially be attributable to our inability to regard health information as the main bedrock to health care delivery. I hereby wish to make these humble suggestions for the consideration of the Director General and the Director, Human Resource and Director, Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation of the Ghana Health Service. 1. More people be trained in the Health Information Management both locally and foreign. This will help in blending the system so that there will be an improvement as a result of exchange of ideas both from local perspective and international perspective. 2. There is the need for retraining of those already employed and are working in different capacities such as Medical Coders, Biostatistics Assistants, Medical Records Assistants etc. Their Job descriptions must be redefined and they must be trained to have knowledge of Medical Terminologies, Basic Statistics, International Classification of Diseases (ICD), Diagnostic Related Groups (DRG) etc. Vigorous effort must be made to help improve the quality of Data by giving them the requisite training. Currently most of the In Service trainings are in the areas of Reproductive health and other public health activities. Health Information Officers also need to be trained in modern techniques of Data collection processing and analysis thereby helping to improve health care delivery and redirecting policies to ensure good health to citizens of this country. 3. The Directorate for Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation as a matter of Urgency must develop a Minimum Data Set and Data Dictionary to assist in standardization of Health Information in the country. 4. The Health Information management units should be well resourced with Data processing equipment to enable them provide the quality information needed for Policy Making, Decision Making and also to support management in her daily activities. Electronic Medical Records System must be encouraged in both the Regional and District Hospitals in the Country. The benefits of these innovations are numerous and the old mentality about Medical Records keeping should be a thing of the past. 5. Our Public health activities will have been improved if we have reliable and readily available Data for planning our public health activities.

Yours faithfully, Simon Dzokoto dzokosim@yahoo.com jocosimo@hotmail.com