67th New Year School opens
The 67th Annual New Year School and Conference opened at the University of Ghana Legon, yesterday, with focus on the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to improve healthcare delivery in the country.
The event, on the theme: “Promoting universal health for sustainable development in Ghana: Is ICT the game changer?” has brought together people from academia, industry, local and national government to deliberate on issues of both national and international relevance.
Topics to be discussed during the five-day school include: “Evaluating Ghana’s e-health policy”; “Creating an enabling environment for ICT and health”; “Data collection for health: The role of ICT”;
“Leveraging ICT to improve reproductive health”; “Sustainable healthcare financing”; and “Capacity enhancement for healthcare professionals: The role of ICT”.
Personalities who will deliver papers on the topics include the Director, the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, Madam Dorothy Gordon; the Vice Dean, School of Graduate Studies of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ama de Graft-Aikins; the Executive Director, Healthy Ghana, Accra, Prof. Agyeman Badu Akosa; and the Dean, School of Information and Communications Studies, Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo.
ICT and health care
The Minister of Health, Mr Alex Segbefia, opening the school, said ICT should play a big role not only in information gathering but also diagnosis in health facilities.
He said, for instance, that ICT could be used to minimise the number of mis-diagnoses and reduce the long queues at health facilities.
On the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Health Minister conceded that Ghana could not attain MDG Five, but said he was optimistic that the country would achieve Sustainable Development
Goal (SDG) Three because all the structures were already in place.
MDG Five focuses on improving maternal health, with the target of reducing by three quarters between 1990 and 2015 the maternal mortality ratio and also achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health, while SDG Three targets the promotion of healthy lives and the well-being of all.
Mobile technology for community health
Delivering the keynote address, the Dean of the School of Public Health of the University of Ghana, Prof. Richard Adanu, noted that the practice of tele-medicine was possible in Ghana, citing the introduction of mobile technology for community health (MoTeCH) in the country.
The technology uses mobile phones to improve health outcomes for mothers and their newborns in the rural areas.
Prof. Adanu said the initiative was designed to bridge the gap between community health workers and patients, adding that achieving universal health coverage included financial risk protection, access to quality essential healthcare services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines by all.
Vice Chancellor
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, noted that unlike the MDGs, the SDGs had a broader focus and would not be very dependent on foreign assistance “but will increasingly be a way to focus priorities on the use of domestic resources”.
He expressed the hope that participants would learn more about how ICT could be used to enhance the promotion of universal health.
“Let us all reaffirm the right of every human being to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, without distinction as to race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition, and the right of everyone to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family,” he urged.
The Provost of the College of Education, Rev. Professor Cephas N. Omenyo, in a statement, said the annual New Year School and Conference had, over the past 66 years, become a platform for the discussion of important issues of national interest by people from all walks of life and the launching pad for key policy decisions.
He said the role of ICT in the promotion of universal health was key, as it had the ability to change and modernise health care, strengthen primary health delivery and build foundations for addressing non-communicable diseases.
Airtel Ghana
The Managing Director of Airtel Ghana, sponsors of the event, Ms Lucy Quist, said she found this year’s theme intriguing “because I think the New Year School has evolved with time — we live in a connected world where technology permeates almost all aspects of our lives, except in the health sector”.
She said Airtel Ghana provided full dedicated Internet for health centres and Wide Area Network (WAN) solution to link health facilities to their affiliates of laboratories, pharmacies and diagnostic centres in sharing and transferring patient data in a secure environment.
