The 67th New Year School and Conference has recommended to government the creation of a health data bank for centralized medical record keeping.
A communique issued by participants at the close of the School urged the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to create an electronic data bank for professional health service workers, where data on patients, pharmaceuticals, and other health information could be accessed across the country.
It said this should, however, be monitored and controlled; stating that Information Communication and Technology (ICT) should make it possible for all health professionals within the hospital environment to have access to patients’ records and histories.
The communique said ICT services should be tailored to suit the particular type of health facility.
It said appropriate laws should be enacted to protect sensitive data about individuals’ health records; in addition, softwares and other mechanisms should be put in place to protect health data against hacking and other forms of abuse.
The 67th New Year School and Conference on the theme: “Promoting Universal Health for Sustainable Development in Ghana: Is the ICT the Game Changer”; was organized by the School of Continuing and Distance Education, College of Education, University of Ghana from Sunday, January 10 to Friday, January 15, 2016.
Airtel Ghana, who was the main sponsor of the event donated GH? 200,000.00 in cash and GH? 50,000.00 in kind towards its organisation.
Professor Yaw Oheneba-Sakyi, Dean of the School of Continuing and Distance Education, College of Education, University of Ghana, in his closing remarks, said there was no doubt that for Ghana to accelerate its economic growth and raise the living standards of its citizens in this era of social and technological innovation to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, new concepts, strategies, and organizations are required.
“The use of ICTs is essential to meet all kinds of socio-economic needs for Ghana to redefine its philosophy on the integration of all aspects of the economy to promote growth, social cohesion and the wellbeing and empowerment of its citizens, and also to position itself for the emerging middle-income knowledge economy,” he said.
The communique recommended that the Ministry of Health (MoH) should intensify coordination and collaborate with all stakeholders like the Ministry of Communications, National Communications Authority, National Information Technology Agency and Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in ICT to provide a harmonized short codes on diverse health related issues and regular updates at a minimal cost for the public.
On the existing e-Health policy, the School recommended that the national e-Health policy should be evaluated and reviewed to make it relevant and practicable to meet the needs of the people.
It said the MoH should take immediate steps to disseminate the e-health policy and content communicated in languages that all stakeholders in the health sector would understand and appreciate.
Realizing that creating an enabling environment for health care in Ghana through the use of ICT could close health gaps between the urban and rural areas, the School recommended that the government should increase investment in health related ICT infrastructure in all health facilities across the country.
The communique said there should be a public-private partnership to invest in other sources of energy solar, wind power; so that rural areas could have access to energy to power their ICT gadgets especially mobile phones which are now basic ICT devices.
Recognizing the role of ICT in data collection for health, the School recommends that there is the need to develop a regulatory framework for health data and information management using ICT within the health sector.
It said manual or paper record keeping in hospitals should be completely phased out; and that all efforts should be made to deploy ICT in collecting and managing health data at the district and local levels.
It said data interconnectivity should be created to ensure effective and efficient data collection, management, and information sharing.
“It is the expectation of all that the recommendations made by the School and Conference will be adopted by the Government of Ghana and other stakeholders in order to make ICT a real game changer in promoting universal health,” the communique stated.
