A Filing Information System (FIS) for Health Records at Kawempe National Referral Hospital

Abstract

The study aimed at designing a Filing Information System for health records of Kawempe National Referral Hospital. The objectives of the study were to; find out the health records filed at Kawempe National Referral Hospital, identify the existing filing information system at Kawempe National Referral Hospital, identify the challenges of the existing filing information system of Kawempe National Referral Hospital, find out the requirements for designing an ideal filing information system for Kawempe National Referral Hospital, make recommendations on the existing filing information system at Kawempe National Referral Hospital, and design an improved filing information system for Kawempe National Referral Hospital. The study employed a case study qualitative research approach to obtain data from the respondents. The interview guides and the observation guides were used in data collection necessary in designing a filing information system for health records of Kawempe National Referral Hospital. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the 10 respondents and we used a stratified random sampling method to select 3 doctors, 4 nurses, 2 records officers and 1 administrator to represent the rest at Kawempe National Referral Hospital. The findings from the study established that Kawempe National Referral Hospital use a numeric filing system which is manual and a decentralised filing system where each department file its own records. The filing system files records like maternal records, neonatal records, paediatrics records, gynaecological records, outpatients register, and obstetrics records. The study also identified the challenges of the filing system at Kawempe National Referral Hospital which included space, technological knowhow, the system is hectic. The study also revealed that Kawempe National Referral Hospital was in the process of setting up an electronic filing system to solve some of the challenges they have which included space, quick retrieval of patients’ files. The study concluded that there was need to design a filing information system for health records so as to make patients’ files accessible and easily retrievable.