Hospitals and Clinics in South Africa Provided with Healthcare IT Software

The implementation of a hospital information system (HIS) is resulting in South African hospitals and clinics being able to increase efficiency, productivity, and quality of care across the healthcare enterprise.

The implementation of the Siemens Healthcare (Erlangen, Germany) HIS is a significant part of the Gauteng DoH's (Department of Health; Johannesburg, South Africa) overall objective to create a single electronic health record (HER) for patients across the province and to eliminate paper-based workflow. The center of the solution is Soarian MedSuite, an integrated hospital information system that proactively manages the clinical, financial, and administrative process from beginning to end. "A primary benefit of the Siemens hospital information system is that once a patient's details have been captured and stored, they can be shared across the hospital's departments as well as with other hospitals and clinics in the region,” said Graham Maritz, CEO of Siemens Healthcare in South Africa. "Once in place within the hospital network, Soarian MedSuite will help optimize processes such as registration, admissions, discharge, billing, medical records management, and enterprise-wide multiresource scheduling.”

The Gauteng DoH has assigned the BAOKI Consortium (Johannesburg, South Africa), which includes AMEtHST (a local joint venture formed by two of Siemens' leading value-added resellers) and Equiton Investment Corp. (Singapore), to implement the Siemens HIS province-wide. As a subcontractor, Siemens will provide the information technology (IT) software component. The installation of the system in the 704-bed Sebokeng Hospital, which was chosen as a pilot site by the Gauteng DoH, was completed within seven months in August 2008 as the solution offered flexibility to configure the business processes of the hospital.

In addition to the hospital information system, Siemens Healthcare will be providing a radiology information system (RIS) to some hospitals that fall under the Gauteng DoH. The radiology departments of those hospitals will be able to use the system to manage patient visits, schedule and track diagnostic procedures, store diagnoses and results, and send billable items to billing systems.

Related Links:
Siemens Healthcare
Gauteng DoH