Ghana NHIS integration assessment
Mapped how Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme handles facility accreditation, member verification and claims, and set out what clinic software can do now and what has to wait until accreditation.
Case study
A clinic system for Menesto Medical Center
Menesto is a 24-hour medical center in Balungo, Bongo District, in Ghana's Upper East Region. I co-founded it in 2013 and still lead it. In 2026 I built its management system with AI-assisted development, using Claude.
One record, from the desk to the bill
Before, a patient's visit lived in several paper books. The system keeps it in one place, so the lab sees the doctor's request, the dispensary sees the prescription and the bill builds itself as the visit goes.
- RegistrationPatient details and appointments
- ConsultationVitals, notes and ICD-10 diagnosis search
- LaboratoryRequests and results
- DispensaryPrescriptions and stock levels
- AdmissionsWard stays and immunizations
- BillingG-DRG codes, cash and MTN Mobile Money
12,000+ICD-10 codes searchable during the consultation
619NHIA G-DRG service codes attached to services
16Linked tables, from registration to stock to bills
Every changeRecorded in an audit log: who changed what, and when
Decisions that matter in a rural clinic
Data stays in the building. The system is built to run on a small server inside the clinic, so patient records never sit on someone else's cloud and work carries on when the internet drops.
Claims start at the consultation. Capturing ICD-10 and G-DRG codes while the patient is in the room means claims for Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme can come straight from the record instead of being rebuilt from paper at month end.
Roles, not one shared login. Each staff member has an account limited to their part of the work.
What went wrong, and the fix
A system built for someone else. Menesto used an off-the-shelf hospital management system from a third-party vendor. It was designed around another hospital's way of working, not ours. Staff had to bend the patient flow to fit its screens, and steps that should have been simple were slow or went back to paper.
A crash we could not fix. Then one afternoon the server stopped. The vendor's setup kept the database on a synced cloud drive, which cannot lock files the way a database needs. The crash was the visible problem. The bigger risk was quiet damage to patient records. Because it was someone else's system, we could not see what had gone wrong or fix it ourselves. We could only wait.
The fix: a system that fits, and that we control. I built Menesto's own system around the way our staff actually work. The live database sits on the clinic's own disk, and backups are consistent snapshots taken while the system is in use. I tested five backups taken under constant use, and all five opened cleanly. When something goes wrong now, we can see why and fix it.
This is what I check in every system I hand over: does it fit the work, and does the clinic stay in control of it?
Where it stands. The system is built and tested, and it holds demo data while the clinic prepares to move over. I'll update this page once it is in daily use.
Other work
Menesto Medical Center online
Built and launched the clinic's website, Google Business Profile and Facebook Page, so patients can find opening hours, services and directions.