Electronic medical records coming for health facilities

The Ministry of Health will be embarking on a project this year to store patients' health records electronically.

"We will be moving assiduously in this direction," said Sancia Bennett Templer, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health. She noted that the proposed move to electronic health files this year would enhance confidentiality of records.

Bennett Templer explained that with the move to electronic records, the administration of health facilities could "have protocols with respect to access to files which would then be controlled by particular codes and so on, that persons would have to utilise, to be able to gain access to certain types of records".

The permanent secretary for the health ministry was responding to a question on Monday about the confidentiality of health records, particularly of children who are victims of sexual abuse. She spoke during the launch of trafficking in persons Standard Operating Procedures for health personnel at the Ministry of Justice on Constant Spring Road.

Concerns have been raised in the past about control systems and security measures at public hospitals that had left the confidential medical records of patients open to public access.