8/14/2019 Address by his excellency the vice president of the Republic of Ghana

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8/14/2019 Address by his excellency the vice president of the Republic of Ghana

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Ladies and Gentlemen, in addition to these challenges I have just mentioned, Africa has ahuge deficit when it comes to th e health workforce required to provide services to ourpeople. Some estimates put this figure at around 4.5 million.But we are constrained by the shortfall in resources, infrastructure and time to train anddeploy such a huge number of health workers. Even when we have stepped up our effortsto train such personnel we are not able to compete with the developed world in terms ofattractive remuneration to retain them. This paucity in trained health workers reflects in thehigh infant and maternal mortality rates existing on the continent.Mr. Chairman, all these challenges create unique opportunities for eHealth in Africa. As wedid over a decade ag o to bring telecom and IT to our people, a careful review of policy toenhance public private partnership would create the resource flow needed deploy modeminformation and communication technology in the health sector.Mr. Chairman, I am informed that through the mobile phone, health events are reportedalmost in real time an d this has improved response time remarkably in some parts of EastAfrica. In some areas health workers are supported on line to solve problems and makediagnosis through contact with experts located probably 1000s of miles away from th e littlerural hospital. And even surgeries are done with on line support from specialists.Hon Ministers of Health, I don't advocate that deployment of eHealth would like a magicwand resolve all the challenges we currently face in our health sector. We must continueth e hard and painful work of providing more health infrastructure, equipment, andpersonnel within easy reach of our communi ties. It is refreshing to note that ehealth holdssignificant potential for solving some of our protracted challenges in th e health sector.By systematically implementing ehealth solutions in our various countries we canameliorate to some extent the problems of underdeveloped infrastructure, personnel etc toaddress both health and medical problems facing our people.

But as countries in Africa, we all share cornmon challenges in our effort to secure the healthof our people. We should therefore rally behind common principles in the search forehealth solutions in ou r various countries.In my estimation, these principles should focus on the need to improve access to the type ofcare needed by individuals and communities, improve quality of care and improveefficiency in the us e of ou r limited resources for health.In other words, ehealth solutions in Africa should be driven by th e need to address existinginequities in the provision of health services in our countries.Mr Chairman, improving access to health services through ehealth should aim atexpanding the scope of activities of limited health personnel an d specialists in a way thatwill minimize the effect of their low numbers in th e sector.In a situation where all our specialists work in our teaching hospitals, we need to find waysof making their expertise available to people living in the rural areas. It has been noted thatin our existing circumstances the deployment of information and communicationtechnology will be cost effective. In this regard, we should also focus on the us e of ehealthto support th e establishment of rapid response systems to enhance performance in both

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8/14/2019 Address by his excellency the vice president of the Republic of Ghana

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clinical an d pubbc health care in our communities. Ehealth should also help in empoweringour people to seek quality care and make the right demands on the health care system.Mr. Chairman, through ehealth we should be able to improve quality by supporting thetransfer of skills and expertise to health workers in the periphery thereby improving theiron-the-job performance.And through the use of ehealth we should aim at improving efficiency by improving bothmanagement and technical efficiency at all levels through reliable informationdissemination systems and by supporting the decision making processes.Regrettably most of our countries have made quite slow progress in the application ofehealth solutions probably because investments in this area have been misdirected byhard talking technology oriented vendors who do not understand our circumstances andye t claim to hold the solutions to our problems.I believe that each one of us can identify at least one such failed ehealth investments in ourcountries. The challenge is how to minimize such failures and ensure that we systematicallybuild on existing initiatives for the benefit of our people.Hon. Ministers of Health I believe that you also share the same concerns as I have that whilewe cannot avoid moving on with the rest of the world, we desperately need an Africanposition on the way and manner information and communication technology must bedeployed on the continent. Indeed, we must avoid the situation where solutions are notbased on our problems and challenges but rather on other systems which do not haveidentical challenges as ours.I have seen proposals that aim at high end telemedicine technology but which do not takeinto account the existing human and technical resource at both ends of the se t up, th e costinvolved an d whether they address our priorities.This review meeting therefore offers us the opportunity to define an ehealth framework forAfrica that will take serious consideration of our needs and our resources. We need such aframework to review our policies and strategies for achieving our major health goalsbeyond the MDGs. It is against this background that I calion all assembled here today toview this meeting as one that will define how we in Africa will deploy ehealth solutions forthe sake of our people.Hon. Ministers, le t me assure you, and I believe that I speak for other African leaders, thatas leaders we renew our commitment to the improvement of the health of our peoplethrough cost effective and proven means. But we must do so with the conviction that at th eend of the da y these will lead to improve health status of our people.On this note I once again welcome yo u all to Accra and wish you very fruitful deliberations.I shall look forward to a communique that we can share with the world and in particular toinvestors in ehealth in Africa.I thank you for your attention

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