Kenya must embrace digital health

Kenya reported its first Covid-19 case on March 13 and by May 18 a total of 50 people. This averaged to about 1.3 deaths a day.

Despite the low daily death rate, many measures, including curfew, lockdowns, limited movement in public places and quarantines, are in place to curb the spread of the disease.

These measures may have some deleterious effects on patients of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), who are usually on a long-term follow-up in clinics for reviews, prescriptions and counselling. However, due to the fear of contracting Covid-19 in hospital and the restrictions put in place, the number of NCD patients missing clinics and regular prescriptions must have surged.

According to the Kenya Stepwise Survey for NCDs in 2015, the diseases account for over 50 per cent of all hospital admissions in Kenya and 40 per cent of deaths. For instance, cancer, the third leading cause of death in Kenya, causes approximately 90 deaths a day in the country. Compare this with the 1.3 Covid-19 related deaths per day. This calls for a paradigm shift in our healthcare system. A transformation that is efficient and accessible to ensure continuity of care for NCD patients at all times. This is a call for digital health.

Digital health refers to the use of technologies and cultural change in advancing healthcare. The benefits of digital health in ensuring quality healthcare delivery as an adjunct to achieve universal health coverage cannot be overemphasized.

Digital health ensures patient safety and convenience. By adopting it, the number of hospital visits are reduced. This in turn reduces the rates of the transmission of infectious diseases in the hospital. Besides, telemedicine, a segment of digital health, minimises the financial cost of travelling to the hospital, physical strain and fatigue and also waiting times.

Patients can also receive their prescriptions online. For instance, in England, NHS have health applications for NCD patients and this is estimated to have reduced clinic visits by approximately 25 per cent.

Digital health also ensures electronic storage and easy access to patient information across all hospitals in the country or even the world. Patients are also able to access their own health information. This educates them on their conditions and keeps them informed on the dates of appointments and types of medication they are on.

Electronic medical data storage can also boost medical research. For instance, Estonia, one of the countries with the best digital health systems in the world, has a system that allows citizens to access their medical examination results, prescriptions, and vaccination plans online.

SUCCESS FACTORS

There are three major factors that may be important for a successful digital health transformation: political goodwill and leadership, digital health institutions and a good digital health strategy.

Firstly, political goodwill and leadership ensures there is a clear framework of digital health in place, its acceptance across the country and sufficient budgetary allocation for its development and maintenance.

Secondly, private and public sector professionals in strategic planning should work together to develop the plan, the vision, the goals and measurable output.

Thirdly, for digital health institutions to work, they should be developed across all the levels of healthcare in the country - from the national to the sub-county level, ensuring a streamlined flow of electronic medical data management.

POTENTIAL IN KENYA

Kenya’s digital health is still an underdeveloped and underused. A few private hospitals in Kenya such as Aga Khan, Nairobi Hospital and mission hospitals such as Tenwek have electronic medical record systems which are still faced with the challenge of inaccessibility by the patients or inability to share that information across different health facilities. Kenya is considered one of the countries with the highest internet penetration in Africa and high literacy levels. Therefore, these factors put Kenya in a good position to adopt digital health.

Governments should allocate funds for digital health, establish free public internet access, introduce and promote digital literacy, establish and develop functional and shareable electronic medical systems in all the health facilities.

Dr Wauye is the Internal Medicine Registrar at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.