The Ministry of Health has clarified the transition from the Social Health Authority (SHA) Provider Portal to the Health Management Information System (HMIS), dismissing confusion that the government was replacing SHA with a new health insurance platform.
In a statement issued by Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale on Friday, October 2, the ministry said the change is aimed at integrating hospital information systems with SHA and other digital health platforms.
The ministry explained that since SHA was established, the Digital Health Agency (DHA) has operated a portal that healthcare providers use to submit and transmit claims to the authority, particularly during the transition to the new health financing system.
However, hospitals have also been required to maintain their own HMIS alongside the SHA Provider Portal. This has meant that healthcare workers sometimes have to enter the same patient and service information into separate systems or transfer data between them.
According to the ministry, the duplication has increased the administrative workload for hospitals and, in some cases, contributed to delays in processing services and longer waiting times for patients.
Under the new arrangement, hospitals will use their existing HMIS as the primary platform for managing healthcare services and related information, with the system integrated with SHA and other components of the digital health infrastructure.
The ministry stressed that HMIS is not a new platform being introduced to replace SHA. Instead, it forms part of the government's ongoing implementation of digital health infrastructure that has already been procured and paid for.
Duale said the transition was intended to address the fragmentation created by multiple systems and reduce the need for healthcare workers to repeatedly capture the same information.
“The objective is not simply to replace one portal with another. The bigger objective is to connect the different components of the healthcare ecosystem,” Duale said.
The ministry said integration of the systems is expected to eliminate unnecessary duplication of data entry while improving the processing of patient admissions, consultations, billing and SHA claims.
The integration is also expected to give authorised healthcare workers easier access to relevant patient information across different stages of care.
The government further said linking hospital records more closely to services provided to patients would improve the quality and verification of claims submitted to SHA.
The system is expected to make it easier to detect duplicate claims and other errors while strengthening accountability in the processing of healthcare payments.
The ministry acknowledged that implementing the transition will require technical integration, training and support for hospitals and healthcare workers.
It said the rollout will ultimately focus on reducing paperwork and repetitive data entry, shortening patient waiting times and improving accountability across Kenya's health sector.
