An Assessment of the Records Keeping Status in Some Selected Health Institutions of Matabeleland South Province, Zimbabwe

This is an Open Access article published online by JHIA and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License presented at the 8th Health Informatics in Africa Conference (HELINA 2013).,Records keeping is important for a functional health delivery system in the management of important information. It forms the indispensable informational and logical link between the different levels of health care both in terms of the referral of patients, supervision, outreach services, the supply of health commodities and disease management. It is an important component of the health care delivery system. The purpose of the study was to find out the range and types of records kept by the health centres, clinics and hospitals; to find out if there are electronic records keeping systems used by the health institutions; to determine the records management and records keeping systems used by the health centres, clinics and hospitals and comparing them to internationally recommended standards; to find out the skills and experience of staff who manage records at different levels