Govt committed to digitalisation of health institutions – Veep
The Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has reiterated government’s commitment to continue to support the digitalisation of health institutions in the country.
The Vice President said the idea of using technology to address present day life issues was at the core of modern day economic management and development.
“Prior to the 2016 elections, I made it a point to sell the idea of transforming the Ghanaian economy using modern day ideas to conform to the Fourth Industrial Revolution” he said
The Vice President was speaking at the launched of the Active Month of the National Health Insurance Scheme in Tamale yesterday.
The active month of the NHIS is a month to give the people of this country opportunity to actively renew and register their cards to have access to the health facilities.
It was on the theme “The Role of Digitalisation in Modern Healthcare Delivery, Recounting Ghana’s ICT Journey in the Fourth Republic.”
He said this would go a long way to resonate with the government’s agenda to use technology to drive development.
Dr Bawumia said no economy can override the present circumstances for a better tomorrow without digital solutions.
“If our economy is not primed today to embrace digital solutions, you will certainly have no economy in the foreseen future”he stated
He said government since 2017 had been at the forefront of providing improved public service delivery using the digital solutions.
He added that the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government had been pursuing aggressively in social and health service delivery to people of this country.
The Vice President said that the role of the digital health solutions in the health sector in the country cannot be overemphasised.
He said over the past years the government had embarked on digitalisation drive in health sector in response to the World Health Organisation (WHO) call.
Dr Bawumia said this was a call for member countries to implement digital health interventions in their health systems to improve access to health care and well-being for their population.
He also said the NHIS in its inception had contributed to increased utilisation of healthcare services leading to improved health outcomes of the people.
Dr Bawumia said they had been significant reductions in the maternal and child mortalities over the last two decades.
He stated that NHIS had contributed to financial resources of healthcare providers in resulting to the expansion of healthcare facilities especially in the private facilities.
He said five million Ghanaian had linked their NHIS cards to the Ghana cards adding that, it would be the sole card for accessing healthcare services in the credited healthcare facilities in the country.
The Vice President however, urged the management of the NHIA to continue to introduce digital innovation in other operational areas of the scheme to improve services for their members.
The Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA),Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye said the NHIA had implemented electronic medical claims(Claims-IT) to reduce turnaround time for claims preparation.
This he said, would help reduce spurious claims and cost to the scheme for increased sustainability.
He said currently close to 3000 healthcare providers were submitting medical claims electronically.
The CEO said the scale-up of the digital innovation was ongoing.
He added that all providers submitting their manual claims had been trained.
The CEO said more than 5000 accredited healthcare providers of the scheme would start submitting electronic claims by the end of 2023
FROM TIMES REPORTER, TAMALE
