Stories by Etta Michael Bisong
Abuja
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has indicated interest to work with the Garki hospital in Abuja to improve the quality of health care services across Nigeria.
The collaboration which reflects government commitment to improve and foster her relationship with private sector organisations signifies a pilot project that both organisations hope to scale-up in the future.
“We need to develop our health care services to be globally competitive,” said Dr. Vincent Olatunji, acting director general of NITDA. “And with adequate deployment of ICT tools in our health system, the sector could make Nigeria medical tourism destination.”
Dr. Olatunji who made the statement while receiving the chief medical director of the hospital, Dr. Ibrahim Wada at the agency’s head office in Abuja, added that the partnership is a win-win situation for both organisations and the country at large.
Remarking at the event, chief medical director of the hospital, Dr. Ibrahim Wada, described the collaboration as marriage and urged that it’s seen as an opportunity to help improve the standard of ICT equipments and capacity of the hospital.
“The hospital can boast of 95% IT compliance as we have digitalised almost all our operations,” he said. “We have migrated from paper based medical record keeping to digital, but we still need to map out how we can partner with NITDA to produce good health care delivery using IT.”
He appealed to NITDA to intervene and help in the establishment of e-library, training of health personnel in ICT, engage patience in education and telemedicine services.
NITDA agreed to consider the request acknowledging that it falls within mandate of the agency.
Head of the e-Health Unit, Dr. Nkem Momah, noted that the alliance was coming at a good time particularly as the agency is in the process of developing standards and guidelines for e-Health deployment nationwide.
He expressed optimism that the two organisations have enough capacity to drive the initiative and would form a committee to come up with modalities for the partnership.
