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Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, Senior Health Reporter 

IMAGINE fainting in the middle of the road in town only to wake up in a public health institution with health care workers having figured out your medical history and needs with just a click on their machines. 

This is the digital innovation that the Ministry of Health has since rolled out countrywide through an application called Impilo Ecosystem, an isiNdebele/IsiZulu word loosely translated to life or good health.

  The digitalised system will result in members of the public having electronic health cards which will be accessible from anywhere in the country for quicker service and reduce the burden of paper data collection for health workers. 

This will in turn give doctors more time to talk with patients during medical consultations. 

Impilo is a comprehensive, health-centric and integrated national electronic health record system for patient registration, patient management and evaluation, patient tracking, stock usage and tracking, and data aggregation, validation and analysis. 

The Government launched the computerised health information management system with the aim of improving patient data monitoring across the country last year and so far 59 percent of Zimbabwe’s health facilities have access to Impilo. 

Developed by a Zimbabwean technical team from scratch, Impilo will also enable health facilities in making orders to stores and also allow for the sharing of data on disease burden at all levels. 

In an interview, the Ministry of Health and Child Care deputy director of Electronic Health Records and Telemedicine Dr Robert Chigora said healthcare workers have been trained to use the innovation. 

He said the Ministry aims to roll out the Impilo system to the remaining 700 institutions by year end. 

“If one collapses on the streets and when you are brought into the hospital, Impilo will enable healthcare workers to detect that he/she has diabetes and offer medical services in line with that medical history.

With Impilo we use less paper records because health care workers write everything and we are not allowed to destroy those documents by law,” said Dr Chigora. 

“Those records with time become unclear but we keep them in that format and with years they have eaten our storage space.

This application will save us that space and the money spent on buying registers as statistics will be captured and monitored easily. Doctors and other healthcare workers spend 75 percent of consultation time writing notes but with Impilo that time will be saved and more of that time will be diverted to engaging with clients.” 

In terms of digital security, he said everyone will have a unique personal identity code which can only be used if one presents at a health institution. 

Dr Chigora said the Ministry was also engaging the Postal and Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) to ensure that all health institutions have access to the Internet for easy navigation. 

“With Impilo members of the public will be able to access their medical records from anywhere in the country as long as there is internet connection in those institutions.

There is an application for travel which we will be launching soon so if you are traveling to Zimbabwe you go into our portal and log on and enter your vaccination results and enter your test results, give us a bit of travelling history and we will give you a QR on your phone. Once you arrive at the border or airport we scan it and you walk in without further delays and that will be Impilo Travel.” 

He said the Government was committed to Impilo and had injected US$4,6 million last year for equipment, hardware and the rolling out of the innovation to public healthcare institutions.

– @thamamoe..