Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has defined 3 primary techniques by which virtual generation has been utilised to advance healthcare supply in Ghana.
Talking throughout an match held to mark NHIS Lively Month in Tamale within the Northern Area, the Vice President indexed the networking of hospitals, provision of scientific drones and the status quo of the e-pharmacy platform as the main interventions delivered to healthcare in Ghana via digitalisation.
The Vice President gave the impression because the keynote speaker for the development, being held below the theme, “The Function of Digitalisation in Trendy Healthcare Supply: Recounting Ghana’s ICT Adventure within the 4th Republic,”
Talking at the theme, Dr. Bawumia defined the advances in healthcare supply that experience come about on account of the federal government’s relentless virtual schedule.
“Digitaisation has been key within the healthcare area. One of the vital key spaces we now have launched into is the digitalisation of our hospitals and scientific information. Earlier than the government commenced systematic digitalisation of scientific information at public well being amenities, all paperwork and information have been paper-based. The method of finding affected person information was once bulky. Some information have been out of place or misfiled. You’ll be able to move to the sanatorium and they are going to say they are able to’t to find your report. This brought about delays within the supply of well being services and products. This [[digitalisation] effort has higher potency, effectiveness and productiveness in provider supply in our well being amenities, getting rid of the will for queues and prolong and extending get right of entry to to healthcare.
“Going ahead, scientific information and the historical past of sufferers will also be accumulated below a unmarried database which will also be accessed via any networked sanatorium when the affected person visits. So we’ve embarked at the connection of well being amenities below the Ghana Well being Carrier on one virtual platform. So for the entire Instructing and Regional hospitals, we’ve hooked up them and they are able to communicate to one another. That is happening below the Lightwave undertaking. The theory is to community all hospitals in Ghana, to this point we now have finished 147 hospitals below the Lightwave undertaking. All Instructing and Regional hospitals had been networked and we’re continuing with different hospitals.” Bawumia mentioned.
The Vice President went directly to checklist Hospitals within the Northern a part of the rustic that has been added to this nationwide community.
“In Northern Area, we now have Tamale Instructing Clinic, Northern Regional Clinic, SDA Clinic and Tamale West Clinic. In North East [Region we have] Bunkpurugu Well being Centre, Binde Clinic, Chereponi Gov’t Clinic, Walewale Clinic, Gambanga Clinic, and Yanga Clinic. In Higher East, Zebila, Bongo, Sandema, Battle Memorial, Paga, Talensi and Higher East Regional Clinic. We’ve got additionally networked Higher West Regional Clinic. The function for us is via subsequent 12 months we might achieve 80% of all hospitals and via 2024, 100% of all hospitals in Ghana shall be networked.
“That is very, very primary. What Ghana is doing, we will be the first nation in Africa to do it. And on the earth, there are best 3 international locations that experience accomplished this community – Germany, India and China. And if we end it, we will be able to be no.4 on the earth. This is one thing primary, and that’s one thing we must be pleased with,”the Veep added.
Bawumia went directly to checklist the opposite two primary healthcare developments – the scientific drone provider and the e-pharmacy platform.
“Any other space we now have used virtual generation to advance get right of entry to to healthcare is thru scientific drones. Hospitals and clinics in faraway and rural settings have a hard time getting scientific provides, particularly in emergencies involving snake bites, childbirth, blood provides wanted and so forth…to deal with this downside, Ghana opted to spouse Zipline, the sector’s biggest, automatic, on-demand supply provider for scientific provides.
“Ghana is the 2d nation in Africa after Rwanda to put into effect the supply of scientific provides to faraway spaces via drones. These days, Ghana has six scientific distribution centre for drones…and those six centres are turning in huge services and products and saving lives each day around the nation. You will need to word that these days, our expensive nation Ghana is the sector’s biggest scientific drone supply provider. Extra impressively, the entire drone centres are 100% manned via Ghanaians.
“Thus far, the drones have accomplished 278,936 flights. When a drone is flying, it’s taking urgently wanted medication – blood, anti-snake serum, vaccines and so forth – they’ve accomplished 278,936 flights and delivered over 12 million deliveries…so you’ll be able to see the drones are saving lives.” the Vice President mentioned.
“A 3rd space that we’ve got serious about is the e-pharmacy. Sufferers typically face difficulties when looking for drugs in pharmacies. They might move to 4, 5, six pharmacies prior to getting fortunate. In 2019, I challenged the pharmaceutical society of Ghana to digitalise the operations of pharmacies in Ghana. The drugstore council in collaboration with the personal sector has finished paintings on a virtual platform for all pharmacies in Ghana,” he persevered.
The virtual platform, the Nationwide Digital Pharmacy Platform (NEPP), is an digital pharmacy the place sufferers can add their prescriptions and purchase medicine at reasonably priced costs to be brought to their houses.
“Mainly, the virtual e-pharmacy platform would provide the chance to everybody via a cell phone to add a prescription and to find out which pharmacies close to you may have the medication. You’ll be able to evaluate the costs for a similar drug introduced via other pharmacies and you’ll be able to purchase from the lowest-priced pharmacy. It is possible for you to to pay along with your cellular cash or scan and pay and you’ll be able to have the medication brought to you at house.
“We predict that during January 2023, we might move are living with a complete rollout of the e-pharmacy platform in Ghana. That is primary, this could make Ghana the primary nation in Sub-Saharan Africa to have a national-scale e-pharmacy and probably the most best few international locations on the earth to have it,” Dr Bawumia added.
The Vice President additionally celebrated the enhanced services and products the Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Scheme (NHIS) has been ready to supply because of digitalisation.
“The Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Authority (NHIA) is digitising operations to scale back fraudulent claims. The renewal of all NHIA registrations used to happen at district places of work…resulting in backlogs and queues. In some cases folks slept there for days, [and] those delays hampered the operations and restricted the earnings streams of the NHIA. Following digitisation, renewal of NHIA registration by way of cell phone has eradicated those bottlenecks and higher get right of entry to to healthcare via those that want it maximum.,” Bawumia defined.
