Digital Health Management in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions: An Integrated Web-Based eHealth Platform
Abstract
Digital health management integrates electronic health records, web-based information systems, digital appointment services, automated reporting, and data-driven management to strengthen healthcare administration and information access. This study developed an integrated web-based eHealth management platform for Nigerian tertiary-institution health centres to address fragmented records, appointment management, pharmacy monitoring, and administrative processes. A design-and-development software-engineering methodology was adopted, following requirements analysis, system and database design, interface development, module integration, testing, and deployment. The platform employs a three-layer architecture comprising presentation, application/business-logic, and database layers and integrates authentication, patient, doctor, appointment, billing, pharmacy, staff/department, reporting, and dashboard functions. The developed system provides centralized management of interconnected records and generates patient demographic, doctor-specialization, appointment-status, and pharmacy-inventory information. Technical evaluation focused on functional, integration, performance, accessibility, and security testing rather than human-subject outcomes. The results demonstrate the feasibility of consolidating major health-centre administrative functions within a single digital environment and converting stored information into dashboard-based management indicators. The study contributes an integrated and accessibility-oriented software platform that provides a technical foundation for digital health-centre management in Nigerian tertiary institutions and can be further extended through mobile access, interoperability, advanced analytics, and AI-assisted administrative decision support.
