ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS AND HEALTHCARE QUALITY IN NIGERIA: A NARRATIVE REVIEW OF BENEFITS, CHALLENGES, AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have become central to contemporary healthcarereform because they improve the storage, retrieval, sharing, and use of patient information. InNigeria, where healthcare delivery is frequently constrained by weak infrastructure, fragmentedrecords, limited workforce capacity, and uneven data quality, EHRs offer significant opportunitiesfor improving clinical decision-making, patient safety, care coordination, and health systemplanning. This paper adopts a narrative review method to examine the role of EHRs in improvinghealthcare quality in Nigeria. Although relevant scholarly literature and policy-oriented sources onEHR adoption, digital health, health information systems, and healthcare quality were reviewed andthematically synthesized. The review shows that EHRs can enhance healthcare quality byimproving access to patient records, reducing documentation errors, supporting continuity of care,strengthening health data management, and enabling evidence-informed policy decisions.However, the effective adoption of EHRs in Nigeria remains limited by inadequate digitalinfrastructure, high implementation costs, poor interoperability, insufficient training, data securityconcerns, and resistance to technological change among healthcare workers. Using the socio-technical approach as its theoretical lens, the paper argues that successful EHR implementationrequires more than technological investment; it also demands attention to users, institutions,workflows, policy frameworks, and organizational culture. The paper concludes that EHRs cansignificantly improve healthcare quality in Nigeria if implementation is supported by sustainablefunding, workforce training, interoperability standards, cybersecurity safeguards, and context-sensitive digital health policies.