The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) says it has trained 17 organisations on e-Health to bridge gap between healthcare and ICT sectors in Nigeria.
NITDA collaborated with the McMaster University Canada for the e-health training held in Calabar, Cross River State and was attended by 38 beneficiaries drawn from different organizations within both the public and private sectors.
According to NITDA, bridging the fundamental knowledge gaps existing among e-Health stakeholders within Nigeria’s health and ICT sectors will help to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient care.
“The emergence of e-Health has been shown to reduce the cost of healthcare and increase efficiency through better retention and retrieval of records, better management of chronic diseases, shorter duration of admission,” says NITDA.
According to the government IT agency, “with e-Health, there is a possibility of more affordable and accessible healthcare especially to under-served communities in Nigeria.”
As a follow up to the programme, NITAD says it will be hosting the maiden edition of Africa’s e-Health Summit in Abuja from October 23-27, 2016, with the theme, “Digitizing Healthcare in Africa to Achieve Universal Health Coverage.”
The training was declared open officially on by the Ag. Director General, NITDA, who was represented by Dr. Nkem Momah, Head of NITDA e-Health Unit.
Participating organizations includes at the training exercise included; NITDA, Federal Ministry of Health, Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, Ogun State Bureau for ICT, Abia State Ministry of Health, Cross River State Ministry of Health, and Cross River State Ministry of ICT, NITDA says.
Other beneficiary organisation included FCT Health Secretariat, Nigeria Navy, Federal Road Safety Corp, Medical & Dental Council of Nigeria, Health Records & Registration Board, National Action Committee on Aids (NACA), Nigeria Police Force, University of Calabar Teaching Hospital and the National Assembly.
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