Authors : Jacqueline Kaliwa; Ulemu Mponela

Volume/Issue : Volume 10 - 2025, Issue 11 - November

Google Scholar : https://tinyurl.com/hedcfb6r

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/25nov1580

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Abstract : Public hospitals in Malawi continue to depend heavily on manual paper-based processes for patient registration, appointment scheduling, medical records, billing, pharmacy dispensing, and inventory management. These practices result in prolonged patient waiting times, frequent record loss, transcription errors, stock-outs of essential medicines, and fragmented care delivery. Health Hub is a comprehensive, web-based hospital management system developed to address these systemic inefficiencies through full digitization of hospital workflows. Built using the Laravel 10 framework with MySQL as the database and Bootstrap 5 for the user interface, the system operates effectively on low-specification hardware commonly available in district and central hospitals. The application implements strict role-based access control with five user categories: Administrator, Doctor, Receptionist, Pharmacist, and Patient. All core functions patient registration, appointment scheduling, electronic health records, prescription management, pharmacy dispensing, inventory tracking, and billing are fully integrated. When a doctor issues a prescription, it appears instantly in the pharmacy module and automatically deducts from inventory, eliminating duplicate entry and preventing stock discrepancies. The system was designed with Malawi’s resource constraints in mind: it functions partially offline, requires no proprietary software, and has been tested successfully on computers with 4 GB RAM and intermittent internet connectivity. Future enhancements include SMS appointment reminders via local gateways, a lightweight Android application for community health workers, and integration with the Ministry of Health’s DHIS2 platform for automated reporting. Health Hub offers a unified, maintainable, and scalable solution that can be deployed and supported locally, marking a practical step toward sustainable digital transformation of Malawi’s public healthcare system.

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