POLOKWANE – The Department of Health has spent well over R100m to digitise patient files in order to ensure long-term accessibility of files from a centralised system, reduction of lawsuits as a result of misplaced patient files and storage shortage challenges.
This was announced as Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba and other officials of the department visited the Veritas Digital Polokwane office and storage facility to get an update of the files migrated to a digital platform since a five-year contract was signed in 2020.
The department says contrary to social media posts alleging wasteful expenditure through a contract given to Veritas Digital to digitise patient files, the process provides relief in accessibility of files, the reduction of lawsuits and storage shortage challenges.
The deputy director-general for corporate services in the department, Matome Mawasha, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if what we have spent so far were to be over R100m. Every cent is worth it and serves as a long-term investment for the department to avoid litigation as a result of missing files.”
In an April 2022 article, Polokwane Observer reported that the Health Department had medical litigation cases to the tune of close to R14b.
Departmental spokesperson Neil Shikwambana said it will be difficult to determine exactly how much the department has spent in the three-year period as the monthly service cost is derived from the number of pages that were processed in line with the contractual agreement based on the fixed price that was agreed upon during the appointment stage. This means that the monthly cost will not necessarily be the same.
The acting director for records management at the department, Mamaila Mohlaka said as soon as all files are properly migrated to a digital portal, the department will dispose of them but permission to dispose all files will be provided by the provincial archive centre at the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.
All files will be kept at the storage facility until such permission is granted and all have been migrated to a digital portal.
In mid 2020, after reportedly advertising the tender on two previous occasions, the department awarded the tender to digitise patient files to Veritas Digital, a company with a national footprint.
Ramathuba says if the company fails to complete the digitisation of all files when the five-year period lapses, they will re-advertise the tender.
She said the department settled for the company after failing to find a competent local company to match the requisites on two previous occasions.
Veritas Digital has two branches in Polokwane, one is an office space where there are employees processing files into a digital portal and another is a storage facility in Ladanna with shelves filled with files from all public health facilities in the province.
The manager of Veritas Digital Polokwane branch, Patricia Khosa, says they process one million files per day.
