The Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has revealed a litany of failures in a $100 million electronic health records contract signed by the previous government, describing the situation as an act of "blackmail" that has left the nation's medical data vulnerable and held hostage by a private vendor.
Speaking at the Government Accountability Series at the Jubilee House yesterday, the minister announced a four-week plan to migrate the country to a new, state-owned health information system to resolve the ongoing disruptions that have plagued health facilities across the country.
Flawed contract
At the heart of the crisis, according to Mr Akandoh, was a contract signed in 2019 with a company called Lightwaves to connect 950 health facilities at $100 million.
The project, initially scheduled for completion in 2022, was twice extended to December 31, 2024, due to poor execution.
"At the end of the expiration, out of the 950 facilities, only 450 facilities had been connected," the minister said.
He added that "a contract that was meant for three years and extended for five years, and you have only delivered 450 (health facilities). Clearly, nobody needs to tell you that the company is at fault".
Despite delivering less than 50 per cent of the work, the minister disclosed that the vendor had been paid approximately $77 million, representing over 70 per cent of the total contract sum.
Data Sovereignty
Mr Akandoh raised concerns about data sovereignty, revealing that the software, known as the Lightwaves Health Information Management System, was not owned by the state.
He described it as "unconscionable" for a private company to have exclusive access to the electronic medical records of Ghanaians without the state having administrative control.
"The vendor insisted that those clauses must be expunged from the agreement. We cannot expunge those clauses because it is the state that must take charge of this data," he said.
He accused the vendor of arbitrarily switching off the system "as and when he desires", a situation he labelled as blackmail, which had left the system completely down for the past two weeks.
Forensic audit
Upon assuming office, the current government conducted a forensic audit which uncovered significant irregularities in the project.
The audit revealed gaps in the supply of hardware, including issues with the quality and quantity of equipment supplied, with the cost of the hardware alone exceeding $18 million.
Following these discoveries, the matter has been referred to the Attorney-General and other appropriate state security and investigative bodies for advice and necessary action.
To extricate the country from the crisis, the minister announced a solution centred on a new, state-owned system called the Ghana Health Information Management System (Ghana Health IMIS).
A key feature of the new architecture includes state ownership, which means that the software will belong to Ghana, unlike the previous one.
Phased rollout
Mr Akandoh announced a four-week phased plan to migrate all affected facilities onto the new system.
The first week will cater for teaching regional and highly populated district hospitals.
The rest of the district hospitals would then be enrolled in week two, while clinics, health centres, and community-based health planning and services (CHPS) compounds would be enrolled in week three.
Week four would be dedicated to a mop-up exercise to ensure comprehensive coverage.
"The good news is that we have the solution," the minister said, assuring the public that the government had taken cognisance of the past failures to build a more resilient and sovereign digital health infrastructure for the nation.
