News
PhilHealth, GSK Foundation Roll-Out OPB Monitoring System in Payatas Health Center - November 22, 2006
The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, Inc. recently rolled out the newly-developed Out-Patient Benefits Monitoring System at the Payatas B Health Center in Quezon City. An extensive training on the use of the new system was conducted among health center personnel who will be authorized to use the system to track availment of out-patient diagnostic benefits by barangay residents. The development of the system is part of the Family Health and Wellness Program being implemented jointly by PhilHealth and GSK Foundation for selected project sites in the country.
Amelita Navarro of PhilHealth’s Management Information Systems Department explains the component modules of the new system that include maintenance, transactions, reports and utilities functions. The system replaces the manual entry of data by city and municipal health officers in the periodic report forms for OP benefits availment in PhilHealth-accredited health centers and rural health units.
Annalyn Tolentino, a midwife at the Payatas B health center, tries her hand at encoding the data from the October 2006 OPB Report using the new monitoring system. Among the basic services that most barangay residents avail themselves of at the health center are immunization, maternal and child care, dengue prevention and treatment, pneumonia, and treatment for tuberculosis through the TB-DOTS Package of PhilHealth. Payatas B is PhilHealth-accredited for TB-DOTS.
The participants from Payatas B who attended the training on the use of the OPB Monitoring System were (foreground, L-R): Juliet Baggayan, public health nurse; Tolentino; Rose Ann Grace Garga, barangay health worker; and (back) Victor Bengullo, sanitary inspector. The health center has one doctor, one dentist, two nurses, three midwives, one medical technologist, a laboratory aide and about 15 barangay health workers.
Dr. Annie Inumerable, Quezon City Health Officer checks out how the new system works. She dropped by during the training to see how the system can help speed up the preparation and submission of OPB reports for PhilHealth’s analysis. Dr. Inumerable also shared that the city is about to access the PhilHealth capitation fund which has reached about P5.2 million for the period 2002 to 2005. About 80 percent of the said amount will be used to buy equipment such as centrifuge, examination tables and cabinets for the city’s health centers.