Health Minister launches four-week plan to fix failing electronic management system

The Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has unveiled a four-week plan to repair the nation’s failing electronic healthcare management system.

Speaking at the Government Accountability Series, the Minister revealed that the government has procured a new platform, the Ghana Healthcare Information Management System, to resolve current challenges and ensure uninterrupted healthcare service delivery.

The Minister attributed the recent disruption in the National Health Insurance Authority’s (NHIA) electronic hospital management system to Lightwave Health Information Management System Limited, the private company contracted to operate the platform.

He disclosed that health facilities will be gradually migrated to the new system over the next four weeks.

“The plan going forward is that in the next week, we will begin with the teaching hospitals, the regional hospitals, and the highly populated district hospitals to roll them onto the system. In the second week, we will focus on the rest of the district hospitals. Then in the third week, we will move to clinics, health centres, and CHPS compounds.

“So, I am confidently announcing to the good people of this country that we have a four-week plan that will get us out of this mess,” Mr Akandoh stated.

The system breakdown has caused widespread delays in record-keeping and patient processing, particularly in the Ashanti Region, where many hospitals have reverted to manual operations. Patients have expressed frustration over prolonged waiting times and slower service delivery.

The Health Minister assured the public that the government remains committed to restoring and strengthening the nation’s digital health infrastructure.

“The medical records of Ghanaians will never go back to the manual way. We are moving forward responsibly, confidently and decisively,” he declared.

Explaining the cause of the system failure, Mr Akandoh revealed that in 2019 the government signed a USD100 million contract with Lightwave to connect 950 health facilities nationwide to a unified digital health records platform.

“At this point, I would like to share the facts as we inherited them. The contract sum was USD100 million to connect 950 health facilities. The contract was supposed to expire in 2022,” he said. He explained that the project was poorly executed, prompting multiple extensions until December 31, 2024, but even after five years, the company had failed to deliver as agreed.

“At the end of the contract, out of the 950 facilities, only 450 had been connected. Clearly, the company underperformed,” Mr Akandoh remarked.

The Minister further disclosed that upon assuming office, the government requested that Lightwave hand over control of the system and its infrastructure to the state, as required under the contract. However, complications arose because the system was hosted on cloud infrastructure in India, limiting Ghana’s access and control.

“We invited the vendor, but the contract had expired, and therefore, they had to hand over to the stated. To have access to the medical records of Ghanaians without the state taking control, without even having access to the service, was unacceptable,” he explained.

A forensic audit, according to Mr Akandoh, revealed significant gaps in both the system’s functionality and the hardware supplied under the contract.

The Health Minister reiterated his ministry’s commitment to fully restoring the electronic health management system. He stressed that work is underway not only to fix the current issues but also to prevent similar failures in the future.

Looking ahead, the Minister emphasised that all digital health projects will be executed with greater transparency, oversight and accountability.