Samuel Ogunmola

Nigeria’s digital health plan could make your medical history follow you instead of staying trapped in one hospital The Federal Government is developing a National Digital Health Architecture designed to connect Nigeria’s fragmented health-information systems around the principle of “One Patient, One Health Record.” The framework has been endorsed nationally and is intended to allow different hospitals and digital platforms to exchange health information securely. The real-life benefit could be enormous. Today, someone treated at one hospital may arrive at another facility and effectively start again: another registration, another medical history, sometimes repeat tests because previous records are unavailable. If properly implemented, doctors could potentially access relevant information such as previous diagnoses, medications, laboratory results and referrals instead of relying entirely on what a sick patient remembers. That could mean faster emergency treatment, fewer unnecessary repeat tests and better continuity of care. Government itself acknowledges that many electronic medical-record systems currently used by Nigerian hospitals are fragmented and unable to communicate with one another. But connecting health records introduces another responsibility: protecting extremely sensitive personal information. Strong cybersecurity, patient consent and clear rules governing who can access records will therefore matter just as much as the technology. The real breakthrough will not be putting hospitals on computers. It will be creating a health system where Nigerians stop carrying their medical history from hospital to hospital in envelopes, old cards and memory.