By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi
Worried by the growing sickle cell anaemia among people, the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH), in collaboration with other partners is to undertake research on fetal stem transplantation aimed at developing cure for the disease
A team comprising experts and researchers from the hospital, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), NISA Medical Group and other international Institutions will in first quarter of this year, 2023 initiate collaborative research to develop a cure for sickle cell anaemia.
The ATBUTH Chief Medical Director (CMD), Dr. Yusuf Bara Jibrin dropped the hint for the research stratagem on Thursday in Bauchi at the formal launching of the Electronic Medical Records of the Hospital, saying E-health is an emerging field in the intersection of medical informatics, public health and business.
While noting that e-health encompasses more than a mere technological development, the CMD said that referring to health care services, information delivered through the Internet and related technologies is geared at improving health care delivery and improve the overall health status of the population.
Jibrin said that ATBUTH considered E-Health as one of its priority projects which implementation process involved setting a Clear Strategic Plan and assessing the available infrastructure and clinical processes like the hardware and its accessories, Network, training, cloud migration and building up of customized modules for the Hospital.
H explained that the Hospital had some infrastructures on ground that supported the deployment of the EHR System but does not meet the optimum level required to support the total deployment, hence it sourced funds from its little internally generated revenue (IGR) to optimize infrastructure.
Dr. Jibrin gave the software vendors that showed interest to provide their services to the ATBUTH, namely Primed E-Health solution EHR software named SMARTCLINC TELEMEDICINE SUITE was chosen based on their software customized architecture such as registries, interoperability, security. privacy and safety.
“As we were about to optimize our EMR, the Nigerian Communication Commission selected our Hospital along with five other health institutions across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria to benefit from the smart clinic Telemedicine suite (E-Health solution) which is an e-mobile and web solution that link a patient based mobile health application with a Hospital or doctor based Information Management system”.
Jibrin expressed confidence that the EMR will effectively help people access health services remotely irrespective of their location at any given time, saying “This is part of the commission’s mandate to encourage research and development effort by all communications industry practitioners”.
He reemphasized the need by the federal Ministry of Health for the adoption of the e-health in all federal teaching Hospitals Federal Medical Centres Specialists hospital across the nation, stressing that ATBUTH with the support of Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy has formally launched.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communication Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta at the occasion said that Prime E-Health Hub is one of the recipients of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) grant aimed at facilitating funding for the Innovation Startup Ecosystem to deploy Smart Clinic solutions to facilitate appointments and payments to reduce queues in hospitals.
He disclosed that the Smart Clinic has been deployed in Teaching hospitals in each of the Six (6) Geopolitical Zones of the Country namely, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, College of Medical Sciences, Bauchi State; Leko Abdulrahman Hospital Daura, Katsina State; Abia State University Teaching Hospital; University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Edo State; University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Ilorin, Kwara State; and Massey Children’s Hospital, Lagos Island, Lagos State
The Permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Health represented by Noah Andrew, has earlier described the event as historic and a significant milestone as well as the fulfillment of one of the priority areas in the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) II under Health system strengthening pillar aimed at improving utilization of Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS).
Andrew said, “The need for inclusion of technologies in health has many advantages and is incontrovertible. It is required to enable meeting up with the increasing demand of health service delivery and it is in line with the executive order 001 (ease of doing business) of this administration because it is the confluence of medical informatics, service delivery, public health and business”.
