UK firm to establish electronic health records system in Guyana

Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 March 2025, 22:02 by Writer

The Ministry of Health on Tuesday inked a US$3.3 million agreement with the United Kingdom-headquartered RioMed Limited to establish an electronic health records (EHR) system that would be accessible across all public healthcare providers to allow doctors to more efficiently treat patients.

Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony again warned those who would access the EHR system, that individuals could be fined up to GY$20 million and corporate entities GY$100 million for accessing private patient information. “Now that you’re putting people’s data in this electronic format, people can try to breach the system. If there’s a breach, we want to ensure that when we catch you that there would be suitable punishment,” he said.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is financing phase one of the EHR system.

Managing Director of RioMed, Mario Mohammed said that the system would ensure “equitable access” to health services across Guyana and patients would be able to access their own records securely online through their own devices. Mr Mohammed said his team would from Wednesday meet with key stakeholders involved in the delivery of health services to understand the challenges and so develop a plan of action and successfully deliver the EHR system for Guyana on time and on budget.

British High Commissioner to Guyana, Jane Miller said RioMed is an “example of the best of British coming to Guyana.” “This is a really high-quality product, a high-quality company that has worked in many different places. They’re not newbies to this, they know what they’re doing,” she said.

IDB Healthcare Network Projects Coordinator, Vishraj Singh said the 18-month EHR project would be implemented, initially, at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and all of its satellite clinics. Officials explained that the EHR would be gradually rolled out at the GPHC, with the total objective of integrating more than 400 health facilities in subsequent phases.

Mr Singh said the customisable software could be tailored by the GPHC and the Ministry of Health to suit Guyana’s requirements and would interoperate with existing systems.

The EHR is expected to reduce patients’ wait times and improve overall health outcomes including management of personnel, inventory and data management,” he said.

GPHC Chief Executive Officer, Robbie Rambarran said the digital EHR would see the hospital and its allied clinics transition from a “traditional paper-based process to a streamlined digital solution” that would empower physicians, improve patient outcomes and enhance the overall experience.

He said currently, GPHC’s clinics and specialties have different record software recording systems. He further explained that there are separate records for patients who attend various clinics. “It results in physicians not knowing, and sometimes patients would not give doctors their proper history and they may prescribe drugs that may conflict with another specialty that prescribed to them before so some of these difficulties in the paper-based system, that lack of integration results in polypharmacy (use of different medications at the same time that can cause complications),” he said. Mr Rambarran said there was a lot of repetition of diagnostic tests and no integrated and multidisciplinary treatment of patients.

Dating back to 2001, he said the GPHC has spent about GY$400 million in upgrading its information technology (IT) system. With the EHR system, he forecasts a reduction in operational costs.

The Health Minister told the ceremony for the signing of the agreement between Riomed and the Health Ministry that the intention is for every patient to have a unique identifier. Plans are also in the pipeline to permit patients to make doctor appointments online.