Electronic records management in the public health sector of the Limpopo province in South Africa

Abstract

Implementation of electronic records management appears to be a serious challenge in the public health sector of Limpopo Province, South Africa, which sacrifices quality of health care. The ob-jective of this study was to establish how electronic records were managed and the current medi-cal recordkeeping practice. Qualitative and quantitative methods were triangulated. Purposive sampling and stratified random sampling methods were applied to select participants for inter-views and questionnaires respectively. Data was collected using questionnaires, observation and interviews. The study discovered that records management negatively affected timely and effec-tive health care services, which resulted in long patient waiting times and patients being treated without medical history. The study recommended the introduction of an electronic records man-agement system that is capable of capturing and providing access to a full patient record and tracking paper record movement, such as Electronic Document and Records Management Sys-tem (EDRMS).