ICT utilization and its barriers in Jigawa State primary health care centers

Abstract

Increasingly, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become a vital tool used in all sectors to carry out tasks effectively and efficiently. The use of ICT in health care sectors has the potential to improve the quality of service, diagnosis and retrieval of information. However, majority of the studies were concentrated on investigating ICT prospective in Tertiary Health Care (THC) and Secondary Health Care (SHC) with Primary Health Care (PHC) been left out. This paper therefore investigates the utilization and barriers to ICT usage in 10 Primary Health Care (PHC) centers located in Jigawa State. The paper takes a twofold approach to combine the views of two parties; the Health Care Personals and the Citizens using the PHC services. A questionnaire survey involving 80 Health Care Personal and 40 Citizens is used in the research. The results revealed that ICT utilization is very poor among Health Care Personnel, ICT improves patient managements and the main barriers to ICT utilization include unavailability of facilities, lack of staff training, Lack of awareness and insufficient knowledge. These findings can be used to improve the quality of healthcare delivery in PHCs.

Keywords: Citizens, Barriers, Survey, Services, Primary, Health, Care