By Ismail Azeez, Osogbo
Hacey Health Initiative has said it is ready to collaborate with the Osun state government in providing digital health solutions to support the state in managing data in 332 primary health facilities across the state to reduce maternal mortality.
Speaking with journalists shortly after stakeholders meeting with Directors in the state Ministry of Health and government representatives at the weekend, the Executive Director of Hacey Health Initiative, Rhoda Robinson, said that digital health programme will improve the working conditions of health care providers in the state.
Robinson noted that the digitisation of health services will assist the system in analysing and reviewing data in real-time to make adequate quick decisions for the people of the state.
She said that they have started the programme in five local government areas of the State to test run the technology with the residents and health system.
According to Robinson, “We’re working in just five local governments now. We do not want to end in five local governments as fast as possible. We want to move from five local governments or move to the other local government as well because that is our vision to ensure that more women and more children have access to better health care.
“It is harder to learn from this kind of thing or fix the problems faster. But right now, what we are doing in the five local governments is we are learning with the technology we are learning with the people we are learning with the system or the state’s health system.
“We need to scale to the other facility by the time we need to scale to the other facilities. We will have a system that works for every single facility that can anticipate changes that are anticipated issues that may come up and respond adequately,” she said
In the same vein, the CEO of IRPO Solutions, Dr. Keith Hanna expressed his excitement to bring digital interventions to Osun state, saying that the plan is to reduce maternal mortality in the state.
He also stressed that they will cut across different verticals such as malaria net immunisation that will be of benefit to all residents of the State.
“This is the first time really out of the lockdown that we’ve been able to travel. So we’re very, very excited to be here today and we visited a healthcare center this morning. So that’s very important for us to see what’s going on there.”
In his remarks, the Special Adviser to Osun State Governor on Public Health, Dr. Siji Olamiju, said the Oyetola-led administration is open to any organisation or individual who wants to extend hands of fellowship to engender quality health for the citizens of the state.
Olamiju commended the Hacey Initiative for deeming it fit to choose Osun has one of the beneficiaries, assuring them of adequate support to achieve the noble objective.
“The opportunity to brought by the Hacey Health Initiative is a welcome idea. It is an initiative that will strengthen our data capturing and data management system in the state, which is centering on maternal-child health, Antenatal and maternal cases in the state,” he added.