Health Records Officers Registration Board of Nigeria (HRORBN) Calls for Degree in Health Information Management


Posted on: Fri 03-04-2015

As part of efforts to improve the proficiency of persons trained as health records officers, the Governing Board of the Health Records Officers Registration Board of Nigeria (HRORBN), on Monday, 16 March, 2016, paid a courtesy call on the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius A. Okojie, OON, to explore the possibility of introducing Health Information Management as a degree programme in Nigerian universities.
 
In his remarks, the HRORBN Chairman, Honourable Ibrahim Jibrin Sokoto, stated that currently, Health Information Management was only offered as a programme in polytechnics. He decried the stagnation of HND holders in Health Information Management, the graduates of which were not allowed to progress beyond Level 14 in the Civil Service, since the
 
Scheme of Service had no provision for migration from Technologist to Officer Cadre for persons without a Bachelor’s degree. He, therefore, appealed to the Commission for assistance in making the programme a degree-awarding one, adding that a university in one of the countries within the ECOWAS sub-region had already assented to offer Health
 
Information Management as a Bachelor’s degree programme. Honourable Sokoto, stated that the Board’s aim was to improve the proficiency of professionals trained under the guide of HRORBN in managing patients, since they were the patients’ first contact, on arrival at a health care facility. Honourable Sokoto stated that the importance of Health Information Management could not be over-emphasised, as the roles and responsibilities of health information management professionals were expanding daily to meet the emerging demands of processing and managing health information. He told the Executive Secretary that the Board had recently risen to its challenges by applying electronic technology to the process of record-keeping in hospitals.
 
The Executive Secretary, who was represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary (I), Professor Chiedu Mafiana, commended HRORBN for its efforts at canvassing for Health Information Management as a degree programme, emphasising the importance of health records and information management in the running of hospitals. He, however, informed the delegation that at the moment, there was no curriculum or Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) for Health
 
Records as a discipline, since it did not exist as a programme in the Nigerian University System (NUS). He told them that whenever a curriculum was developed for the new programme, the Commission would ensure that it was properly domiciled in a university with comparative advantage. The Executive Secretary told the HRORBN delegation that the Commission had met with other professional bodies which had sought NUC’s assistance to achieve the same goal, adding that most of them had achieved their aim. In his remarks, the Deputy Executive Secretary (II), Mallam Ibrahim Dan’Iya, advised that students who were interested in the field study of Public Health, which already existed in the NUS, later specialised in medical records.
 
The Registrar of HRORBN, Mr. Mohammed Mauk, said that the Board had submitted the preliminary requirements to the NUC, requesting the Commission to let it know the benchmark requirements for awarding degrees in Health Information Management. He stated that. HRORBN was set to partner only with universities that had the necessary equipment on ground, adding that there was a need for Nigerian universities to offer the programme. Also in the HRORBN delegation were Mr Wole Ajayi, Elder Ekanem Ewa, Dr. Ndagi Adamu and Dr. Isiaka Sule.