Briefings
Healthcare Access: Abuja Adopts Telemedicine To Bridge Inequality
Gbenga Ogundare
At last, the benefits of the globalization trends are gradually becoming manifest in all facets of development in Nigeria. And the latest is in the field of medicine where medical professionals and caregivers can now exploit the instruments of information communication technology to provide a coordinated, cheap and cost effective healthcare consultancy to a widely dispersed patients, particularly in rural communities where 70 percent of ordinary Nigerians are huddled.
The eHealth policy, initiated recently by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Health and Human Services Secretariat, is an action plan to guide the implementation of an innovative healthcare delivery that is mainly driven by electronic processes and communication technology, including the use of health applications on mobile phones.
“eHealth will also provide a useful platform for a more effective and efficient healthcare delivery system by increasing access to qualitative healthcare, reducing cost, enhancing health promotion and disease surveillance, and improving planning and decision making processes for health administrators,” Dr. Iniobong Ekong, Secretary of the FCT eHealth Committee said.
With technical support from the PLANNED-Health initiative under the Management Sciences for Health’s Nigeria Programs, the objective of the eHealth policy is to ensure that the FCT
health system uses information and communication technology (ICT) to address inequity in access to health services by rural and urban populations, thus ensuring effective and efficient service delivery.
To galvanise the process, the FCT Health Planning, Research and Statistics department have concluded a workshop where stakeholders analyzed challenges in the FCT healthcare system such as human resources shortages; lack of information systems or an ICT infrastructure; and the inaccessibility and high cost of existing healthcare services.
To support its implementation in the FCT, therefore, Participants at the workshop recommended the Establishment of a leadership and governance structure led by the Steering Committee to implement the eHealth policy; enlist the active support and involvement of all major stakeholders at all levels (government, development partners and donors, academia, and professional bodies and associations); use different strategies for addressing human resources challenges.
For instance, one doctor can attend to many clients at the same time (such as, when clients log in to a web portal to consult with a doctor, and a doctor can attend to several clients online and still maintain confidentiality); bring ICT infrastructure and training to rural areas; since one doctor can attend to many patients, the cost is shared among these patients.
If the FCT experiment succeeds, stakeholders say it can be replicated in other states. And ultimately, better decisions will be made due to increased patient choice and improved data management.
USAID Gives Succour TO Nigerian Orphans
Gbenga Ogundare
Both for the purpose of national planning and the evaluation of advocacy intervention programmes in Nigeria, the paucity of accurate data that will assist policy makers and development partners remains a painful challenge. So it is no surprise that the PEPFAR-funded Community Based Support for Orphan and Vulnerable Children in the country (CUBS), has had difficulty obtaining accurate and timely data from health workers providing OVC services in the project-supported states. But technology is offering a breather for the USAID project now, and chances are that the innovation will prove useful to national planning efforts in Nigeria if adopted in the long run. The latest innovation that will assist the CUBS’ data gathering procedure uses the Dimagi Commcare, a simple, low cost, mobile phone and cloud-based application that facilitates accurate and real-time data reporting. CUBS’ customized Commcare to accommodate the project’s data collection tools and installed it onto smartphones. The project team then trained 25 community-based volunteers in the project State to use the phones to record data on OVC program enrollment, services rendered, and child health status. Once entered, this data populates a web-based platform that feeds into databases run by CUBS’ implementer.
In Gombe State where the technology is being tested, to ensure data quality, CUBS provided the volunteers with regular supportive supervision and hands-on mentoring throughout a two-month pilot period.
At the end of the pilot phase, all of the trained volunteers were able to use the phones to submit data to the CUBS office and the Gombe State Ministry of Women Affairs, each time they provided a service. In addition to improved timeliness, the volunteers were also submitting more robust data, including details on each child’s health status and the specific services they received. Previously, volunteers had only submitted summary data, but the smartphone system now allows them to enter individual details on over 1500 children.
Since its successful launch , more complete data now allows CUBS to assess its field interventions on a daily basis to ensure all volunteers are performing as expected and all OVC are receiving the services they need.
“With this system, data can truly come in—even from our remote communities,” said the OVC desk officer at Gombe State Ministry of Women Affairs.
HIV /AIDS impacts millions in sub-Saharan Africa still, thus contributing to a steady growth in the population of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). In 2008, data from the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs revealed that 25 percent of Nigerian children were orphans or considered vulnerable due to unmet needs for nutrition, education, shelter, care, or support.
Since the CUBS project kicked off in 2009, Reporting efforts have been inhibited by paper-based data collection tools, poor internet access, frequent power failures, and Nigeria’s increasing insecurity and corresponding travel risks. As a result, field data arrives incomplete, late, or not at all, making it difficult for CUBS to measure the impact of its interventions and improve programming. To fill this gap, therefore, CUBS’ staff often travels through dangerous areas to collect the missing data and retrain staff on data collection procedures.
But with the capability of the Dimagi Commcare technology to improve timely, quality data collection the CUBS intervention project can now be expanded across other states, thus providing orphans and vulnerable children a chance to survive.
If funded, Management Sciences for Health, CUBS’ implementing organization, estimates that this intervention will improve data collection and service delivery to over 6000 OVC within one year.
NaijaAdvocate 