Health Record Management Practice and Administrative Decision Making in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife

Abstract

Health Record management practices have always been the hospitals fundamental assets. Lacking
it, the typical hospital basically cannot operate effectively and efficiently. More and more, hospital
health management practice is being seen as a critical business practice which facilitates hospital
administrators to establish a baseline for proper decision making, validate their business dealings
and connected actions. Despite the importance of health records management in hospital
administration, there are lots of problems constraining the use of health records by administrators
for decision making, including lack of awareness. This study therefore seeks to assess the
constraints of health records management practices in decision making among hospital
administrators in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife. The study
adopted the survey research method with a population of 118 who are all departmental
administrators in all functional departments at the hospital. The result of the survey on the level of
awareness of the administrators on health records management practice for decision making
revealed that 77.1% of the respondent have high level of awareness. Also, 93.2% of the respondent
agree that health records management practice is critical for quality clinical and administrative
decision making. Meanwhile, 93.2% of the respondent actually make use of health records in
decision making. The study therefore concluded that, health records management practice is vital
to administrative decision making in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex,
Ile-Ife.