This department is the custodian of all patients’ records. These records contain information needed to plan, provide and evaluate the care given to the patient. It serves as a tool for communicating information to all health personnel who deal with the patient and contributes to the continuity of patients care. To fulfil these functions successfully requires not only that the medical records meet certain minimum standards but also a system for making the information contained in the records available when needed. Records are currently created and maintained physically and electronically through Jeeva system. The major functions of this department is to manage and organize health records; code and classify diseases; store and retrieve health records; and collect, tabulate, analyse and interpret data for research, training and administrative use.

The department also deals with the clinic arrangements, appointment scheduling and general patients care services over the hospital units through receiving, registering and directing them to their respective service points. The activities within the department are supported by 78 employees. Impact of Information Technology at Muhimbili National Hospital Integration of IT into electronic registration of all patients by capturing their demographic variables has made easy to track lost records, lessen time to register patient and created a reliable data source. Through Laboratory Information System, all samples are currently recorded, processed electronically and automatically transferred to HIS system and the results can be read online from wards or clinics by authorized personnel. Thus there is no need of moving around with documents as it used to be.

This has substantially reduced turnaround time. In financial management and control, the system is assisting in monitoring revenue collected which can be hourly, daily, or even by a cash collection point, per service offered as well as the cost of all exempted patients. Hospital expenditure is also monitored in a similar manner. Management of Inventory is one of the complex areas in a large hospital like Muhimbili. Therefore, the IT systems tracks level of our stock in a store, make available list of drugs to Doctors for prescriptions, control of what comes in and what goes out and facilitates staff to make orders of required stationery and other equipment for use online. Other notable impact of integrating IT is better management of drugs’ inventory, real-time notification of new pharmacy orders, real-time viewing of drugs’ inventory at any pharmacy sub store, dispensing location, wards, in the clinics, ability to set re-order levels and automatic generation of notification whenever the reorder level is reached and drugs availability easy accessed by Clinicians. In regarding dispensing of medicines better controlled, no one receive medicines without going through proper channels, and daily reconciliation of inventory against medicines issued carried out. With over 3,000 employees, the systems helps Human Resources Directorate access to a list of MNH Staff by profession, level of education, retirement and confirmation dates, specialists available in various clinical specialization, etc.

This system has created a seamless flow of information making it easy to produce reports for better management and planning especially in patients care and treatment. It has allowed MNH to create the information society whereby more than 1400 staffs have been trained including nurses, doctors and other key personnel on how to use the IT system. The improved availability and exchange of information process has helped ordering of various services from departments to be carried out online through the computer system. This also includes diagnosis requests (Laboratory) and medicines.

Turnaround time for ordering various services from central stores and diagnostic laboratory is reduced and efficiency increased. The department has implemented and is supporting Telemedicine services where it employs technology that makes it possible for our hospital to care for patients at remote areas. Muhimbili National Hospital is connected via fiber optic cable to seven other hospitals to provide telemedicine services. These hospitals are; Morogoro Regional Referral Hospital, Kilosa District Hospital, Turiani Designated District Hospital, Lindi Regional Referral Hospital, Nachingwea District Hospital, Nyangao Designated District Hospital and Mafia District Hospital. Services that are currently provided through our telemedicine network include; E-Consultation, Tele-Radiology, E-Referral and Video Conferencing. More hospitals around the country are planned to be connected to this service in the near future.