DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/23 September) – Patients at the Southern Philippines’ Medical Center (SPMC) will soon say goodbye to long queues for records and billings.
The SPMC is now on the final phase of its health information system for easier access of hospital records and quicker processing of medical billings.
Dr. Leopoldo Vega, SPMC chief of hospitals, said the system is necessary because of the high volume of records in the hospital. The 1,200-bed state-run facility accommodates an average of 280,000 out-patients, 80,000 from emergency cases and 70,000 admitted patients annually.
For faster transactions, Vega said there is a “need to integrate the information from all the departments of the hospital.”
Vega said the system is developed by Segworks Technologies Corporation, which used a “superfast fiber-optic network backbone,” according to its website.
Samuel R. Matunog, president of Segworks, said earlier that the system utilizes a technology he described as Segworks Health Information System to manage the administrative, financial and clinical aspects of the hospital without worrying much about licensing.
The company is one of the leading advocates of free and open source software (FOSS) in Mindanao after noticing the intrinsic limitations of commercial software products including weakness in security, expensive upgrades and closed-source code.
Matunog said the best thing about the system is the savings on cost. The hospital uses several modules for its emergency room, outpatient, administration, cashiering, medical records, admission, pharmacy, billing, and laboratory.
“The nine modules will start at P650,000 to P700,000 and that’s not really expensive,” he said.
Matunog noted that 19 computers using licensed software would cost about P600,000 while 49 computers will cost about 1.2 million,” he said. (MindaNews)