Assessing the efficient use of the lightwave health information management system for health service delivery in Ghana

BACKGROUND: In achieving the WHO’s Universal Health Coverage and the Global Developmental Agenda: Sustainable Development Goal 3 and 9, the Ministry of Health launched a nationwide deployment of the lightwave health information management system (LHIMS) in the Central Region to facilitate health service delivery. This paper assessed the efficient use of the LHIMS among health professionals in the Central Region. METHODS: A non-interventional descriptive cross-sectional study design was employed for this research. The study used stratified and simple random sampling for selecting 1126 study respondents from 10 health facilities that use the LHIMS. The respondents included prescribers, nurses, midwives and auxiliary staff. Descriptive statistics (weighted mean) was computed to determine the average weighted score for all the indicators under efficiency. Also, bivariate (χ(2)) and multivariate (ordinal logistic regression) analyses were conducted to test the study’s hypotheses. RESULTS: Findings revealed that the LHIMS enhanced efficient health service delivery. From the bivariate analysis, external factors; sex, educational qualification, work experience, profession type and computer literacy were associated with the efficient use of the LHIMS. However, training offered prior to the use of the LHIMS, and the duration of training had no association. At the multivariate level, only work experience and computer literacy significantly influenced the efficient use of the LHIMS. CONCLUSION: The implementation of LHIMS has the potential to significantly improve health service delivery. General computing skills should be offered to system users by the Ministry of Health to improve literacy in the use of computers. Active participation in the use of LHIMS by all relevant healthcare professionals should be encouraged.