MedTrack: The Ultimate Digital Healthcare Delivery System for Ghana

With the advancement of tech, many other areas of everyday life have evolved to match the capabilities of current technologies. From working with folders to keeping records on computers, healthcare in Ghana has quite kept up the pace.

There are still some areas lacking when it comes to delivering healthcare entirely via a seamless digital experience, and this could get a whole lot better. Having to rely on systems to provide this experience is not far from us. In fact, it’s here — through MedTrack.

MedTrack is a patient management system for all Ghanaians. You see, the way many of these existing healthcare systems work is that they are centred around the health facilities. A typical patient would seek care from different doctors at different health facilities during their lifetime. So you move from one location to the other, and your data is kept at these various health facilities, separately. When you decide to change doctors, your medical information still sits with your old health facility.

The need to have a decentralized patient health information system which isn’t siloed to the various health facilities will be a major step forward for doctors and how they administer patient care. MedTrack solves this in such a way that, as a patient, your health information moves with you as you move and visit various doctors/health facilities.

Let me give an example. When I set up my MedTrack, it creates a digital folder for me as a patient. This is similar to how a physical folder would be “opened” and operated for patients at a health facility. When I visit the doctor, or in home-care cases when the doctor visits, a record of the visit (investigations, labs, medication etc) is logged in. This record is added to my MedTrack folder. Just the same way as would have been done during any medical appointment. The beauty here is, my record can securely be reviewed by a second professional if needed.

For people who have periodic appointments, chronic illnesses, and specialist routines, this will be useful as you’ll have access to your data and history — which you can manage securely.

But it doesn’t stop there. MedTrack gets even better.

When you visit a doctor, they will usually ask you to visit the lab for some investigations, then they can prescribe some medication afterwards. The doctor can securely request for the investigations and the results will be sent back to them. That appointment is securely updated — all via MedTrack. Yea, just like that.

However, your hospital visit is mostly not complete without a prescription, right? MedTrack comes with Pharmacies tightly integrated. Doctors can send prescriptions to pharmacies through MedTrack. This can be sent to internal hospital pharmacies (eliminating the paper-based models most hospitals use) or external pharmacies signed up on MedTrack. Dispensed medications are updated automatically on MedTrack, helping doctors properly track medication use and over-the-phone refills. Patients always receive SMS notifications of prescriptions.

MedTrack caters to patients, doctors, labs, and pharmacies.

So let’s complete our near-perfect healthcare delivery scenario. If your preferred health service providers were all on MedTrack, you visit your doctor, he enters your appointment on MedTrack, sends a lab request, you visit the lab and your request is already queued, the completed lab request is sent to the doctor securely, and the doctor sends your prescription via MedTrack to your pharmacy, you can go to your pharmacy(or get it delivered) seamlessly using MedTrack.

Congrats! You have successfully received healthcare without having to remember your last hospital visit or trying to recollect which medication you were on using the colour of the packaging.

This is how 21st-century caregiving should work. The rest of the world has moved on, and we should too. You can sign up via medtrack.africa/get-started if you’re a patient. You can sign up with your Ghana Card; just enter your Ghana Card ID and you’re good to go. You can simply visit medtrack.africa to read more. Healthcare service providers can also request for a free set-up.

MedTrack has been built by Ghanaians doctors and engineers who believe that the current healthcare system could be improved and made seamless, to match how technology is being used currently. It provides a solution to the 80-year-old grandmother being questioned by a doctor about her current antihypertensive medications and she having to turn to the clueless face of her grandson.

We all know things can be a whole lot better. MedTrack might just be the start.