14 Nov
In times of greatest need, we need ingenuity to address our problems. Today, Ghana has 2630 health facilities, 7089 hospital beds for its population of close to 30 million people. That combined with a doctor to patient ratio of 1:8481, it is no doubt that our health system is seriously under-resourced both in terms of infrastructure and our human resources. Despite these challenges, our healthcare professionals on the frontlines go to incredible lengths to cater for us.
In such a system, the costs of waste and inefficiencies are easily compounded and can easily result in poorer health outcomes and preventable death. While we seek to augment our resource deficits, it is necessary to increase our efficiency on many fronts as well. The following areas can harness the power of technology to increase efficiencies.
- Bed management: With the current issue of #NoBedSyndrome in our hospitals, bed management software like Apomden can allow doctors to maintain real-time information on bed availability in their facilities and other facilities across the country. With better information sharing, hospitals can better coordinate patient transfers between facilities.
- Emergency response: During emergencies, patients and ambulance services can use Apomden to guide their decision making on what hospitals they are likely to get care
- Drug inventory management: Nationally, we can monitor our drug purchasing patterns and disease burden to forecast and predict which drugs we can stockpile.
- Disease surveillance: We can leverage available technology to maintain real-time information on disease incidence across the country. With that, impending outbreaks can also be easily detected and contained
The possibilities for technology investment are ripe and we need to evaluate where we can put some of our healthcare Ghana cedis to supplement our infrastructure efforts.
NB: Health facilities do not include number of CHPS
