Lagos to Fully Digitalise Public Health Sector Within 9 Months

The Lagos State Government says it plans to fully digitalise the state’s public healthcare system within the next six to nine months as part of efforts to strengthen healthcare delivery and data management.

This was disclosed by the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, during the launch of the Data Science and Medical Image Analysis Training for Improved Healthcare Delivery in Nigeria (DATICAN) and a High Performance Computing Facility at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital.

According to Abayomi, the state government has already commenced the Smart Health Information Platform (SHIP), an initiative designed to digitise healthcare services across public health facilities.

What the commissioner said

Abayomi said the digitalisation project covers the state’s general hospitals, teaching hospitals and more than 300 primary healthcare centres.

• “Lagos State has commenced a project called the SHIP. 
• “This is an initiative to completely digitalise the public health space in the first instance, which is all our general hospitals, our teaching hospitals, and our 300 primary health care facilities. 
• “We have been at it for almost 18 months. We have gotten 50 per cent of the way and in the next six to nine months the entire public health space is going to be digitalised,” he said.

He added that initiatives such as DATICAN could complement the state’s digital health programme by producing trained personnel and providing data resources for research and policy development.

Abayomi noted that data governance remained critical, particularly as citizens were increasingly concerned about the security of financial and health information.

• “The data that belongs to the people must be safe in the custodianship of the government. 
• “While we use it to drive innovation and economic development, we must also guarantee the privacy and security of citizens,” he said.

More insights

The Programme Director of DATICAN, Benjamin Aribisala, said the initiative was established to address gaps in data-driven medical research in Nigeria.

Aribisala explained that the programme is designed to build capacity in data science and encourage collaboration between medical professionals and computer scientists.

• “Data science has become central to decision-making in modern society, including in the health sector. Anywhere you see data, that is where data science can be applied,” he said.

He noted that Nigeria and other African countries still face uneven adoption of data science technologies compared to developed economies, largely due to a shortage of skilled professionals capable of applying these tools in healthcare.

According to him, another challenge is the limited collaboration between medical experts and computer scientists, as well as the lack of a national repository of medical images for research.

• Aribisala said the DATICAN initiative would help bridge these gaps by building capacity in data science and medical image analysis while developing a medical data repository to support research and innovation.
• Also speaking, the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, said the initiative represents a major step toward strengthening Nigeria’s research ecosystem and advancing digital innovation in healthcare.

The minister added that the newly launched Medical Image Repository would provide thousands of curated medical images to support research and the development of artificial intelligence diagnostic tools tailored to Nigerian and African populations.

What you should know 

Lagos State authorities are also moving to strengthen oversight of healthcare providers in the state. The Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, recently announced plans to establish a new regulatory agency dedicated to monitoring private healthcare facilities.

• According to him, the proposed body will complement the work of the Health Facilities Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA), which currently regulates both public and private health centres but faces capacity challenges in supervising the growing number of private providers across the state.
• Obasa said the new agency aims to improve patient safety and address concerns about the quality of care in some private hospitals serving Lagos’ large population.

Lagos is also pursuing broader health financing reforms. The state’s Health Commissioner, Akin Abayomi, said Lagos could unlock over N400 billion annually for healthcare if at least 20 million residents enroll in the Lagos State Health Scheme (Ìlera Èkó).