He said the efficacy of the new system to swiftly detect dubious acts, would help recoup the about 30 per cent Health insurance claims purportedly lost to the state due to some dubious manipulations in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), especially through the issuance of fake insurance cards.

“The recovery of the 30 per cent claims and other revenue accruals, is what would be used to self-finance the system and to resource the facilities by way of procuring new equipment”, the Minister said.

Mr Agyemang-Manu briefing the media after a working visit to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), said the facility, the second referral centre in the country and a teaching hospital, was the second to adopt the system.

He said the system which could capture all the vital health information of patients, including those referred from other facilities, is not only cost-effective and convenient to both the health worker and patient, but would assist in disease surveillance in case of epidemics.

Patients would not need to carry folders, monies and other documents around but just a small card which has the code to their folders in the system and this would facilitate tracking and pave way for further examination and diagnosis.

The Minster said the system would be introduced in all the 3,800 hospitals and Community-Based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compounds in the country in three-phases within the three years of its implementation.

Currently, it is being piloted in 30 hospitals in the Central Region.

The first phase of the project, will connect all teaching hospitals,  the second phase would cover, the regional hospitals and those closer to them, whiles the third phase would also involve the CHPS compounds, he explained.

Dr Oheneba Owusu-Danso, the Chief Executive Officer of KATH, said the implementation would also be in different phases and expressed the hope that by the end of the first quarter of 2019, the whole hospital would be connected to the system.

Dr Owusu-Danso said every chore that was going to be performed in the Hospital was going to involve the use of the computers and urged all staffers to acquire some level of computer literacy.

He was upbeat that the system will help health workers attend to patients faster, this was because after a few weeks of the systems operation at the hospital, OPD attendance has been dealt with in a shorter period.