Public Sector 
Kenyatta National Hospital is a publicly supported, 1,800 bed facility located in Nairobi. It serves 520,000 outpatient and 70,000 inpatients every year and relies on 4,500 staff to provide care to patients. It is the primary referral hospital in Kenya and also provides first line health support to much of the Nairobi population at a reduced price (relative to private hospitals).Challenges with Manual process
Manual processes drive a majority of the activities at the hospital and relative to technology, are more inefficient, difficult to measure, and prone to human error. Already, 40 million records are in need of digitization.
In line with Vision 2030 goal for the health sector to provide equitable and affordable health services to all Kenyans, KNH is spearheading the adoption of appropriate technologies to support e-Health for improved health services. In the light of this, KNH intends to digitise some medical records as the initial step towards realization of automated patient data and provision of world class services.
In the first phase, 4 million records in the Ear, Nose and Throat clinics have been earmarked for digitisation starting June to September 2012. Through a grant of USD 400,000 from Rockefeller foundation, local contractors, Techno Brain and COSEKE were competitively awarded to oversee the process.
With digitisation it will become easier to manage medical records that will be more comprehensive and include everything from patient information to diagnostic care and prescription data. The electronic medical records will be used for a wide variety of purposes, such as getting multiple views, diagnostic care and treatment, assessing preventive measures for various illnesses, and for assessing the outcome of clinical trials and research. This will also help the hospital and researchers to monitor common ailments and their prevalence in specific areas.
This project is geared towards jobs creation especially in the BPO sector, and skills transfer as well as change management at KNH. The digitisation process will utilise the Impact Sourcing model which is about employing those at the bottom of the pyramid, while impacting the lives through good services with the digitized records. By undertaking this project for KNH, it is envisaged that this will be a flagship project for the health sector in the country to replicate.
Digitisation is part of the larger KNH ICT Master Plan, which aims at transformation at the hospital.
Early, 2012, the Kenya ICT Board, in partnership with Accenture, helped develop the hospital ICT Master plan which has earmarked 70 ICT projects for automation, and will lead to improved quality of life to the citizenry.
