Research, practice and innovations in health records and information management in Nigeria between 1966 and 2016: a review

Abstract

Background/Objective: There is growing demand for patients’ health records and healthcare data in the quest to improve quality of care, decrease healthcare cost and medical errors and to facilitate the conduct of meaningful research in healthcare. Interestingly, innovations in ICT such as personal health records, electronic health records, mHealth, consumer health informatics and big data are being deployed to improve the management of health records and information as well as healthcare data. Methods/Design: The investigators searched mostly, Google Scholar, ResearchGate and Pubmed to conduct a scoping retrospective review of titles and topics in health information management in relation to Nigerian healthcare system. Result: One hundred and sixteen (87.9%) of the 132 articles retrieved were reviewed. Most (86.2%) of these articles were published between 2006 and 2016 largely in international journals (82.4%), were more of cross-sectional designs (22.5%) and conducted most times, by medical practitioners. Electronic health records and other health IT (37.1%) and retrospective review of patient's health records for care quality (31.0%) were the most discussed titles in health records and information management in Nigeria. Conclusion: Awareness on Health IT and the use of patient’s health records for care quality is on the increase in the Nigerian healthcare systems. This is especially among scholars in healthcare. This gives hope of a better future for healthcare data management in the nation’s healthcare systems. There is therefore needs for improved political support from the Federal Government of Nigeria and renewed commitment among healthcare providers with a view to reengineering healthcare data management and in order to reawaken the moribund confidence in the nation’s healthcare system.