ASSESSMENT OF CHALLENGES OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT PRACTICE IN MILITARY HOSPITAL PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE.

The study assessed the challenges of health information management practice in Military Hospital Port Harcourt. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study consisted of entire health information management professionals in Military Hospital Port Harcourt. A sample size of 30 health information management professionals was used for the study. Census or enumeration sampling method was employed to select the respondents. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.81. Data collected were analysed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0 using frequency tables to answer research questions. The result of the study showed that majority of respondents (63.7%) know what is health information management and use both manual and electronic methods for patient health record keeping. 77.1% respondents also accepted that incompetent staff skills in health information management practice, low prioritization of health information management by health facility, poor health record system and poor handwriting and capturing of patient’s health information are challenges to health information management practice in the hospital. It was therefore concluded that health facilities should see health information management practice as a bedrock of the organization. Recommendations were made that health information management professionals should be trained and retrained periodically.