- Enhancing delivery of care to patients
KINGSTON, Jamaica. Tuesday, June 10, 2025: Thirteen of the island’s health facilities now have the benefit of the electronic health records (EHR) system, eCare, which is already yielding increasing efficiencies in the delivery of care to patients.
Dr. the Hon. Christopher Tufton, MP, made the revelation during his Sectoral Presentation to Parliament earlier today (June 10, 2025).
The implementation has taken place under the US$148-million Health Systems Strengthening Programme (HSSP), a flagship infrastructure project for resilience building in health and which is jointly financed by the Government of Jamaica (US$87 Million), the Inter-American Development Bank (US$50 Million in loan) and the European Union (US$11 Million in grant funding).
“Madam Speaker, under the HSSP, we are building out 13 health centres and hospitals, equipping them with fully digitised patient records and modern diagnostics machinery,” noted Dr. Tufton.
Jamaica made the historic move to introduce EHR, with the signing of the contract for implementation in 2022. Since that time, there has been a just over US$5-million-rollout of the system across the 13 health facilities, including at the Spanish Town Hospital, the May Pen Hospital, and the St. Ann’s Bay Hospital.
The other 10 facilities to benefit are: the Chapelton Community Hospital; May Pen Health Centre; May Pen East Health Centre; Mocho Health Centre; Greater Portmore Health Centre; St. Jago Park Health Centre; Old Harbour Health Centre; St. Ann’s Bay Health Centre; Ocho Rios Health Centre; and Brown’s Town Health Centre.
The EHR system, which turns on the philosophy of ‘one patient, one record’, sees the transition to a paperless system for patient records and the upload and sharing of these records among healthcare providers for the seamless and collaborative delivery of care.
The implementation of the system, whose features include a patient-registration system for appointment setting and assignment of patients in the triage process of a facility – means less cost in providing services; increased productivity; reduced staff frustration; and increased service satisfaction levels.
Other features that help to make that possible include a seamless interface of critical diagnostic imaging that will enable health care professionals to see x-rays and CT scans on computers and tablets provided within the facilities.
Under the contract for the delivery of the system, Jamaica’s entitlements include a 15-year support period, along with additional functionality, including a patient-centric mobile app.