20 January 2012

The Ghana ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) Policy which represents the Vision for Ghana in the information age has as its overall objective to engineer an ICT-led socio-economic development process with the potential to transform Ghana into a middle income, information-rich, knowledge-based and technology driven economy and society. The Strategic Focus of the Policy is to simultaneously target the development of the ICT sector and industry as well as use ICTs as a broad-based enabler of developmental goals, with emphasis on the development, deployment and exploitation of ICTs to aid the development of all other sectors of the economy.

Despite the fact that this ICT4D policy has been in place over the years, very little has been achieved in terms of mainstreaming ICTs fully into the health sector of the country especially the areas of using ICT tools to manage records of patients’ and general health information management as well as telemedicine and mobile health.
It is to create the awareness about the enormous benefits that the country will derive if she fully integrates ICT into the health delivery system of Ghana that the Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS) organized a workshop on ICT and Health Information Management, Telemedicine and Mobile Health for health workers in the Savelugu Nantong District.

The Director of Savana Signatures, speaking on behalf of the Executive Secretary of GINKS, Mr. Inusah Ibrahim emphasized the need for health workers to incorporate/integrate ICT tools into their work. He therefore urged the participants to take the workshop serious as it aims at educating them on better ways of using ICT for effective health delivery.

Speaking on the topic “Health Information Management” Mr. Ken Kubuga, a lecturer at Tamale Polytechnic and the Director of Boldsteps Foundation took participants through the importance of ICT in health and indicated that ICTs makes health delivery cheaper, more accessible, brings about simplification of administrative processes, reduces the cost of gathering and processing data and facilitate the delivery of health related information to remote locations within the health sector. He lamented that there was no single heath training institution/hospital that can boast of the use of ICT in its training of health students as he informed the participants about the current state of ICT in the health training institutions/hospitals. The absence of ICT education in our health institutions, he said, could lead to the slow rate at which things are done, affect the quality of data, poor decision making, duplication of effort, duplication of records, unnecessary waste of time in entry, storage and retrievals of data, more time spent by patients at health facilities and medical staff not having access to up to date information
Addressing efforts being made to integrate ICT into the health sector in Ghana, Mr. Kubuga mentioned that there is currently MOTECH that is used by midwives in the Upper East Region to assist pregnant women with maternal health information. He also mentioned Health lines by Vodafone Ghana to give out health information tips to the general public by sending text messages to their phones. He however said it was regrettable to know that, only Vodafone subscribers have access to this health tips/information. He mentioned among many others, mpedigree designed to detect counterfeit drugs or medicine, SENE PDA e-Health Project, a collaborative work between the Berekum Health Directorate and Sene District Health Directorate and Access to Health, an NGO from the United States. He further mentioned that BoldTech has deployed a less developed and stand alone version of its HMIS package to about 15 health delivery facilities mainly in Northern Ghana.

On the way forward for health workers in the use of ICT, Mr. Kubuga urged the participants to learn basic forms of using information systems to manage their records. He also called on NGOs working in the area of ICTs to initiate and pilot ICT projects in health institutions to ensure sustainability while commercial software providers and other stake holders collaborate to ensure harmony.

When he took his turn to speak on “Telemedicine and Mobile Health”, the Upper East Regional ICT officer for the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr. Hassan Hamadu, took the participants through the 14 pillars of the Ghana ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) policy and focused on the component of health. He led the participants through the objectives of the pillar 9 that focuses on health and indicated the key stake holders who were identified to make this pillar a reality. He lamented that, the National Health Insurance Authority was not included in the list because, at the time of drawing this policy, it had not been established.

 Mr. Hassan reiterated the need for the introduction of mHealth (using mobile communications—such as PDAs and mobile phones for health services and information) into the health sector. He added that health institutions could also rely on the use of eHealth (an umbrella term that includes tele medicine, electronic medical records and other components of health information technology) that is, the use of computers to facilitate health service delivery.
He stated that the mHealth ecosystem is created through the coalition of three sectors – Health, Technology and Finance with the backdrop of government policy. Touching on the frame work for mHealth and its impact, he emphasized the need for ICT in Health Literacy.

Some of the participants expressed their gratitude to GINKS for organizing this kind of workshop to enlighten them about the use of ICTs in health. They wish for more of its kind and pledged their full commitment to integrate ICT in their work. Some participants called on GINKS to connect health institutions and its workers with NGOs that can supply laptops to them and as well provide them with practical ICT training.

In his closing remarks, the director of Savana Signatures Mr. John Stephen Agbenyo, thanked the participants for honoring the invitation and urged them to share the knowledge gained with others who have not been privilege to be in the workshop. He further urged participants to make efforts in purchasing their own ICT tools (computer) as it is the surest way of integrating ICT in one’s life.