Applicability of ICT for performance improvement of medical services in Tanzania: a case study of Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH)

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Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
Today the health sector experiences a huge number of patients who attend medical treatment in hospitals, resulting to huge number of health information. Thereby increasing of time taken to attend and treat patient. This study examines the applicability of ICT for performance improvement of medical services in Tanzania, for the case study of Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH). The study focused on the effect of application of ICT to medical service provision. The factors affecting performance of ICT and efficiency of application of ICT in different Decision Making Units (DMUs). Quantitative data and descriptive statistics was analysed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 and Data envelopment analysis (DEA) with Data envelopment analysis (Computer) program (DEAP) version 2.1 was used to reveal result of technical efficiency of ICT in DMUs. Questionnaire were distributed to 240 respondents, out of those 92.1% (221) questionnaire were returned. Whereby the sample size required was 219. Seven DMUs namely: Record department, Radiology department, Pharmacy department, Outpatient department, surgery department and Central pathology Laboratory were involved in study. The result shows that the entire cycle of medical operations from patient admission consultation to discharge uses ICT services. Moreover, ICT system was found to be useful in laboratory, pharmacy, radiology, patient, patient record generation, attendance monitoring, training, health insurance information, procurement and communication. ICT was revealed to be moderately used to surgery activities and emergence services. Moreover a study shows that queue management was lagging behind on the use of ICT in managing patient queue. Furthermore the overall (mean) technical efficiency of 100% was the loading DMU and acted as frontier among six DMUs. The other five DMUs acted as less efficient units and arranged in descending order and their technical efficiency in bracket; records department (78.7%), central pathology laboratory (CPL) (55.7) out Patient department (OPD) (31.7%), radiology department (10.9%) and lastly surgery department (01.3%). The study recommends that managements are supposed to increase frequency of conducting training to ICT users along with improving to ICT infrastructures. Moreover it is recommended for further studies in hospital of different level such as referral hospital, zone, regional, and district hospitals. Also further studies can be done to other organization apart from health sector, especially in banking telecommunication industrial sector, and academic institutions.
Description
Available in print form,East Africana Collection ,Dr.Wilbert Chagula Library,Class mark ( THS EAF T58.5.T34K344
Keywords
Information technology, Information superhighway, Medical care, Improvements, Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH), Tanzania
Citation
Kajiru, A.T (2019), Applicability of ICT for performance improvement of medical services in Tanzania: a case study of Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH). Master Disertation, University of Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam