The South African medical fraternity has raised concerns about the lack of digital technology in the public healthcare industry, which it says will impact the delivery of the National Health Insurance (NHI).

Speaking to News24 on the second day of the Africa Health Indaba in Midrand, Johannesburg, Dr Bandile Hadebe, one of the organisers and spokesperson for the event, said the healthcare industry was behind in adopting digital technology, which hampers the ability to run an efficient public health system. 

The indaba, attended by thought leaders and politicians in the health sector from across Africa, seeks to position Africa as a leader in medical innovation, spearheading global change.

Hadebe said for the NHI to work, precise information on hospital usage and medicine consumption, down to the district level, is needed so that authorities can adequately budget. Currently, there is a legacy reliance on paper-based systems. 

"Gathering that information is not possible currently. The budgeting exercise needs loads of insightful data for us to make those decisions," he added.

Without carefully curated data, he said, patients would end up suffering the consequences of medicine stock-outs. 

The NHI Bill is currently before the National Council of Provinces, after the National Assembly passed it in June despite strong opposition from the private healthcare industry and opposition parties.

Beyond the NHI, Hadebe said, the dearth of digital technology in the public healthcare sector had led to a surge in medical litigation cases.

"The lack of adoption of digital technology platforms in public health has led to poor quality healthcare. We are lagging in adopting digital platforms for managing data, patient records and finances. For instance, something as simple as managing leave systems is still heavily paper-based," Hadebe said. 

He added that hospital CEOs were losing a lot of credible information that could provide insights about the health system.

Hadebe said South Africa had high rates of medicolegal cases, fundamentally because of a porous record-keeping system that allows syndicates of healthcare professionals, lawyers and patients to launch fraudulent damages claims.

Last week, IOL reported that the Health Sector Anti-Corruption Forum (HSACF) was concerned about the rise in these matters and the presence of organised crime within the health sector.

This was after the Special Investigating Unit briefed the HSACF on medicolegal investigations and mentioned discovering that there were no hospital records for all the claimants being investigated.

Hadebe, who was part of the investigations into the missing hospital files, said they found that critical information from a patient's file often goes missing before that patient claims dubious complications.

"However, when the matter is taken to court, the hospital cannot produce documents because they are missing. If there are no documents in court, something has not been done," he said. 

In most circumstances, Hadebe said, clinicians and administrators are not implicated; the syndicates steal the files.

"If the files were digital and stored remotely in a cloud, as in when the case appears in front of a judge, we would be able to recall the files and account step by step on what was done to the patient. That's how technology becomes involved in a whole medical issue," Hadebe said.