WAH Goes Beyond Tarlac Five years since its inception in Tarlac province in 2009, the Wireless Access for Health (WAH) e-health platform has successfully built its case not only as a pioneering public-private partnership but as a best practice intervention in local health information system management. The simple set-up, low-investment, socially relevant and universally-applicable character of the WAH, both as a technology and as a partnership, speaks for its replicability. It is fully compliant and ready to inter-operate with the DOH system, enabling RHUs to submit electronic reports using the e-FHSIS platform. From the four pilot RHUs in Tarlac, the electronic health record (EHR) which is the main component of the WAH platform is now being used by 50 rural health centers in LuzonHealth Project sites and in 39 others in several provinces supported by the Zuellig Family Foundation. Building on the HealthGov experience, LuzonHealth supports the scale-up of WAH through a range of technical assistance activities and ladderized training of trainers program that build the capacity and equip regional and provincial teams to assist rural health centers in the use of and local management of the EHR. Following the footsteps of Tarlac, the City of Baguio and the Province of Pangasinan have begun efforts toward the city- wide and province-wide adoption of the WAH platform. By September 2014, Baguio has already rolled out WAH in eight health districts and is poised to complete the remaining eight by mid-2015. Dr. Rowena Galpo, OIC CHO of Baguio, sees “WAH as a functional and living capacity-building partnership for LGUs and public clinics. We look forward to a productive engagement as we adopt WAH in all our 16 districts.” Dr. Ana Marie Banta, Medical Officer of Atab, one of the first health centers in Baguio to adopt the WAH-EHR has this to say “Inspite of the fact that we are still in the beginning phases of WAH, consultations have become easier, lost charts are a thing of the past. Charts don’t need to be brought to the physician then to the nurses anymore. Because of WAH, reports can be generated within minutes.” In Pangasinan, where four RHUs are leading the way towards the province-wide adoption of the WAH EHR, Dr. Ophelia Rivera, Municipal Health Officer of Mangaldan, professes that “It is easier for us now to retrieve and consolidate morbidity reports, unlike before when our staff had to write the reports everyday, and take several days at the end of the month to consolidate. And because all details are now recorded in the system during consultations, our reports have also become more accurate.” Meanwhile in Tarlac, Dr. Jeanette Lazatin, Tarlac Provincial Health Officer I, reports how Municipal Health Offices (MHOs) in the province, have improved the accuracy and quality of their health data and have begun using data from WAH in their medical procurement processes and program implementation reviews with their LCEs and local health boards. From their initial system use in January 2014 up to the end of September 2014, the 11 health centers in Baguio and Pangasinan have registered sustained increases in service delivery, with a total of 32,398 patient records and 45,110 consultations. On the other hand, Tarlac’s 39 health centers have 459,866 patient records and 1,845,160 consultations for the same period. With more LGUs requesting for orientations and demonstrations, LuzonHealth is poised to assist in responding to the call of the DOH to modernize the local health information landscape in the country through the replication of the Wireless Access for Health.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 05:49:46 +0000